The Jordan Valley Podcast

Daniel 10 to 12 – Our Allotted Inheritance

It was the first month during the third year of King Cyrus’ reign, when Daniel was given one final revelation concerning a great war. Remember that this was two years after Cyrus had allowed the Israelites to return to their homeland and also after the exiles faced opposition to their temple building efforts. So it was perhaps a peaceful period in Daniel’s life when suddenly he was given this violent revelation. DANIEL’S VISION OF A MAN Taken aback by this frightening revelation, Daniel mourned for twenty one days and on the twenty fourth day of the month he saw a man dressed in linen, with his attire comprising of precious metals and with a voice sounding like that of a multitude, standing before him on top of the waters of the river Tigris. Only Daniel was able to see this man as his companions ran and hid themselves because of the terror that had overwhelmed them. Not everyone had the same relationship with God and they would not be able to comprehend what was being revealed about the future. John the Baptist had a close relation with God and only he heard the voice from Heaven calling Jesus the Son of God, while it was kept from others. John realised his purpose on that day but his relationship with God started long before that day. Similarly, Daniel now in his nineties, had a close personal relationship with God and thus was the only one present there who could see the vision of the man. > So I was left alone, gazing at this great vision; I had no strength left, my face turned deathly pale and I was helpless. Then I heard him speaking, and as I listened to him, I fell into a deep sleep, my face to the ground. > > Daniel 10:8-9 The man lifted Daniel up and told him that he had come to interpret the revelation that was given three weeks earlier to Daniel. He explained the reason for his delay, that he had been held up with the rulers of Persia till the time Michael helped him. Michael is an archangel and over here he is described as the head of princes. The princes mentioned over here are thus angels and daemons rather than earthly princes. The struggle being described by the man is not an earthly conflict but one within spiritual realm like the one described by Jude wherein satan and Michael struggled for Moses’s mortal remains. > But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” > > Jude 1:9 Till this day no one knows where Moses is buried. This gives us insights into the war that goes on in the spiritual realm and that sometimes coincides with the wars that kings of the earth start. THE KINGS OF THE GREAT WAR The man explained the meaning of the revelation to Daniel in great detail listing down the kings and queens who will temporarily rule over the land. Four more kings were to come from Persia with the last of them bing the richest and notorious as he would stir up trouble with their Greek neighbours. > Then a mighty king will arise, who will rule with great power and do as he pleases. > > Daniel 11:3 Most probably alluding to the great Alexander of Greece, but he died young leaving no heirs and his kingdom was divided among his generals just as it was prophesied. The Ptolemies are probably the kings of the South while the Seleucids are the kings of the North. There are six Ptolemies and seven Seleucids rulers that are mentioned here with the prophecy about their battles, marriages and conquest all coming true, down to the very last detail. Antiochus III ruled in Israel from 223 to 187 BC and defiled the temple and stopped the rituals of the Jews. THE END The last king probably refers to the beast from John’s revelations as they both had similar demises. Michael will arise to protect God’s people leading up to the events of the second coming of Christ. > Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. > > Daniel 12:2-3 Upon enquiring the outcome of these events, Daniel was told to roll up the scrolls till the end times as he himself would not be alive to witness these events but like the other ‘wise’, who have obeyed God’s voice, he will be raised and given his allotted inheritance. Like Daniel, we also do not need to know the times of these events described in this book. What we must understand is that there is a spiritual warfare going on behind the scenes of our problems but realise that God has allowed for it and only He can put a stop to it at the appointed time. Till then we need to stay on the path that God has chosen for us, fully submitting to His will, and when the Day of the Lord arrives, we too will receive our allotted inheritance. QUESTIONS DISCUSSED 1. Why was Daniel mourning? 2. Why could no one else see the vision? 3. Who was the man dressed in linen? 4. How can a prince or a king detain heavenly beings? 5. What was the purpose of the delay? 6. Why tell Daniel the future happenings when the man doesn’t want to tell him the outcome? 7. What is the Beautiful Land? 8. Why is the fight of the North and the South of importance?

Daniel 6 – Sleepless in Babylon

After the assassination of Belshazzar, the Medes took over the great city of Babylon with the sixty-two year old Darius at the helm. He appointed hundred and twenty satraps to rule over the kingdom with three administrators over them. The satraps were given jurisdiction to minimise the losses of the king. They were responsible for solving regional disputes to avoid political tensions and keep the king’s name away from controversial decisions. But the king was so impressed with Daniel that he was set above all these officials. > For he is the living God > and he endures forever; > his kingdom will not be destroyed, > his dominion will never end. > > Daniel 6:26 The kings words describing Yahweh are very similar to Daniel’s dream in Chapter 7 [https://thejordanvalley.com/2020/11/06/daniel-7-the-son-of-man/] and Gabriel’s account in Chapter 9 [https://thejordanvalley.com/2020/11/27/daniel-9-his-everlasting-righteousness/]. He calls Yahweh the living God whose kingdom will last forever. This might be because Daniel had interactions with the king about Elohim but the king’s faith was not completely rooted in God. When he saw how Daniel miraculously came out unscathed from the lions’ den, he could understand these words that Daniel used to describe God very easily. WORD OVER WORKS Often times we call our friends to witness miracles without giving them the word and after they witness God’s power, they are left confused as to what just happened. We should not call people randomly to increase numbers for our meetings but consult with the Spirit before inviting anyone. We might want to invite someone we love and of similar mindset but God might have someone completely opposite in mind. However, Daniel’s rise in ranks did not sit well with the administrators and satraps below him who were most probably Medes by descent. They went to the king and coaxed him with the idea of having his subjects literally worship him, knowing very well about Daniel’s loyalty to his God. Darius liked the idea and issued a decree in writing that could not be altered by anyone with the defaulters to be thrown into the den of lions. Self-adulation is a trait that most people posses. Kings definitely had big egos and needed their subjects to praise them to boost their egos and can be the reason for Darius’s impromptu decree. But Daniel did not change his routine fearing the decree and continued to pray facing his beloved city of Jerusalem. Our God is not only omnipresent but also ever present. There is no need for us to be facing a particular way or praying during certain times a day. We have the habit of restricting God to a particular place. Some people dedicate a room in their house to God while some believe God lives at the altar of their church. We must realise that God resides in or hearts and not in any man-made city, church or altar. This is something that Daniel had been doing all his life. This is what worked for him as it helped him connect with God. We need to find what works for us and not emulate others. If I prefer to connect with God at nights, that is my preference and that should not be proclaimed as a rule. Our relationship with God should not be guided by a handbook that is written using someone else’s experience. STANDING OUTSIDE LOOKING IN > Then these men went as a group and found Daniel praying and asking God for help. So they went to the king and spoke to him about his royal decree: > > Daniel 6:11-12 They kept on moving in groups, when they went to the king to issue the decree or when they went to spy on Daniel or even when they went to complain about him to the king. Whenever we do something evil, we need people in the same boat with us. Students who plan mass bunks, want their entire class to participate as the punishment cannot be severe if everyone is involved. Sadly, that is our strategy for life also and we don’t want to stand alone for God and want to mix with the evil among us thinking God can’t punish all of us. The pharisees, even the ones who believed in Jesus, did not want to stand alone and moved in groups criticising and plotting against Him. > When the king heard this, he was greatly distressed; he was determined to rescue Daniel and made every effort until sundown to save him. > > Daniel 6:14 But according to the law of the Medes and Persians, no decree that the king had issued could be changed by anyone. So reluctantly the king gave the orders for Daniel to be thrown in the lions’ den. He is even praying to Daniel’s God to save him and spent the entire night worried and restless. Clearly there is something more to the friendship between the king and Daniel that we are not aware of. Daniel spent lot of time with the king as he was second in command and perhaps the king was pleased with Daniel’s character as he was trustworthy and highly competent. > At the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lions’ den. When he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice, “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?” > > Daniel 6:19-20 When the king heard Daniel’s voice he was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. The decree that the king could not take back, God was able to reverse and the governors and satraps who plotted against Daniel were killed instead, along with their wives and children. The killing of the family members of the satraps who plotted to kill Daniel might seem cruel. What was there crime? This was a common practice in those days as the wives and kids were considered as property that belonged to the man and after his death there would be no one to claim them. Family execution was also to ensure that no relative of the executed would survive and later seek revenge against the king. A practice still followed today by many authoritarians and even democratic governments. > So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian. > > Daniel 6:28 REST ASSURED Putting our trust on God gives us the peace that even the wealthiest among us cannot buy. The guy who was the ruler of the most powerful kingdom in the world was having insomnia, while the ninety year old man, who had been thrown into the den of the beasts, rested comfortably. Darius did not understand what God has to offer and equated Him to the other myths that he had heard in his lifetime. On the other hand, Daniel was assured of God’s protection over him, not for his mortal body but for his soul. He had seen more terrifying creatures than these lions in the revelations given to him by God. Even with his advanced age and a recent setback in his personal life (misunderstood the prophecy about the exile period), he still had faith on his Creator and knew that he will be saved, even if not in his mortal form but definitely in his spirit. We all can see our state of mind during the trials in our lives and can evaluate how actually close we are to God. Are we like Darius? Sleepless, panicking and not sure what will happen next or are we like Daniel? Who in spite of not knowing the result of standing alone, left the worrying to God and slept peacefully that night.

Daniel 9 – His Everlasting Righteousness

After the assassination of Belshazzar, a new king took over and that opened up a whole bunch of questions in Daniel’s mind. When Darius the Mede ascended the throne at Babylon, Daniel started perusing through the writings of Jeremiah to look for the signs for when God will rescue his people. > When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. > > Jeremiah 29:10-11 [https://thejordanvalley.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/daniel-9.png?w=915] We all know the second part of the above verse from the book of Jeremiah and often quote it to reassure ourselves that we will be rewarded while we are still on this earth in lieu of our loyalty to God. But it was part of Jeremiah’s prophecy which was fulfilled seventy years later when Zerubbabel and Co. were allowed to return to Jerusalem by Cyrus (Ezra 1 [https://thejordanvalley.com/2020/07/04/ezra-12-the-return/]). Just like we slice and dice through passages and pick out verses that seem comforting to us without understanding the context, Daniel was also doing the same and did not have the perspective of what Jeremiah was taking about and neither the leading from the Spirit when he misinterpreted the above verse to mean that Israel would be restored to its former glory soon. DANIEL’S PRAYER > So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes. > > Daniel 9:3 Daniel pours his heart out and confesses the sins of Israel, pleading for God’s forgiveness. Even though the punishment perfectly fit the crime that Israel had committed, Daniel was hopeful that their misery would soon end. He goes as far as asking God to resurrect Jerusalem for His name sake, suggesting that the mockery of Israel was being transferred on God. Daniel is representing the entire nation of Israel in his plea to God for their redemption. While he acknowledges all the sins of his ancestors that led to their downfall, he also knows the heart of God and is seeking forgiveness for the entire tribe of Jacob. The fact that the language was switched back to Hebrew for the second part of the book means that Daniel’s petition was made known to his fellow exiles. We also sometimes take advantage of the love that God has for us and think that we can manipulate Him according to our whims and fancies. But God is the same yesterday, today and forever. The God who led the Israelites out of Egypt was the same when he exiled them to Babylon. God is the same with Daniel as He is with us. Naivety is understandable in the early stages of our faith, but as we grow closer to God, we must be able to understand His heart and accept His will. ALONG CAME GABRIEL While Daniel was still praying, the angel of the Lord, Gabriel, came to him in the cool of the day to help him understand God’s will. This is more likely a physical appearance of the angel and not a vision similar to when Gabriel appeared before the New Testament fathers, who like Daniel had trouble accepting God’s plan. > “Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place. > > Daniel 9:24 The Seventy Sevens is often a disputed time-frame with some believing it denotes the period leading up to the evil king Antiochus’s reign. But just like Jesus’s response of seventy-seven when asked that how often we should forgive our transgressors, does not mean a finite number, the above time period could also be an indefinite one, about events that are yet to come. > Your righteousness is everlasting > and your law is true. > > Psalms 119:142 Apart from God there is nothing that will last forever. The evil one might trick us into believing otherwise but unlike Eve, we have the Spirt of God to help us connect with God. He is the only one who can seal up prophecies and visions and He has anointed the Holy One, His Son, to bear our transgressions. If we have complete faith on God, knowing ETAs of events become irrelevant and the confidence of knowing that it will happen matters most. THE SEVENS Gabriel talks about three time periods in cryptic terms, describing these time periods as “Seven” or weeks. The seventy “Seven” are divided into seven “Seven”, sixty-two “Seven” and the last remaining “Seven”. The first time period might denote the end of the exile period when the Jews volunteered to go up to Jerusalem to rebuild the ruined city. The Second time period seems to be leading up to Jesus’s death on the cross that liberated us from our eternal exiles. The last seven seems to be the current time period during which, the forces of evil will seek to overthrow God and set up an abomination that causes desolation about which Matthew chronicle’s Jesus describing. > “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel… then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains…. For then there will be great distress, unequalled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equalled again. > > Matthew 24:15-21 DOUBTS CREEP IN Like Daniel, we too start questioning God and start listing down all the good we have supposedly done for Him. We want to prove to God that we are worthy of His Grace and Blessings on us and are in some sense ‘demanding to see the manger’ when things are not working out for us. We must realise that if we try to play that game with our Creator, we will never win, as what He has done for us is immeasurable, while our so-called good deeds, more often than not, are driven by self-preservation. Let us give control of our lives to God and patiently wait for Him to work in our lives. Remember that He never interfered in our lives when we were trying out new things, rather, He waited all those years for us to accept Him as our Saviour. He transforms our lives and gives us an unexplainable joy in our lives and if we patiently wait for Him, we will be able to witness His Everlasting Righteousness.

Daniel 5 – The Writing was Always on The Wall

Daniel was still unknown to the new king of the land, Belshazzar, who was the joint ruler of Babylon from 553-539 BC. The events in this chapter are the accounts of his last day in office as he was assassinated seemingly out of the blue, but the writing was always on the wall. Belshazzar was hosting a celebratory banquet for all his nobles when suddenly, he thought that drinking wine in one of the exploits of his kingdom would make for some great dinner party conversations. And so > he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. > > Daniel 5:2 THE KILLJOY As they were drinking from the temple ornaments, everyone started praising their pagan gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood and even stone. At that very moment, fingers from a human hand appeared before them and started writing something on the wall near a lampstand inside the Royal Palace. Belshazzar was scared out of his mind as his face turned pale, his legs became weak and his knees started knocking. All the king’s men were dumbfounded and could not make sense of what the mysterious hand had inscribed on the walls of the Royal Palace. The serving of wine in the holy vessels from the temple of God could have been the last straw but surely our God is not an erratic God who acts on impulses. God gave the Babylonian rulers ample time to learn from their past mistakes and when Belshazzar kept imagining himself to be in the driver seat, he was humbled by God. His arrogance and disregard for the God of Heaven was the reason for his upheaval from the throne. But the king could not understand and gave this declaration, > “Whoever reads this writing and tells me what it means will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around his neck, and he will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.” > > Daniel 5:7 BEHIND EVERY SCARED MAN... On hearing that none of the nobles were able to interpret the meaning of what was written on the walls, the queen stepped in and reminded everyone about a forgotten man of God. > There is a man in your kingdom who has the spirit of the holy gods in him. In the time of your father he was found to have insight and intelligence and wisdom like that of the gods. > > Daniel 5:11 The queen mentioned here could you be the mother of Belshazzar or one of the remaining wives of Nebuchadnezzar who had witnessed first-hand, how God used Daniel and kept delivering messages to Nebuchadnezzar. ENTER DANIEL So Daniel was brought before Belshazzar and offered the purple robe and power in return for the correct interpretation. He was promised to be made third in line after Belsahazzar and his father Nabonidus. Daniel reminded Belshazzar about his ancestor Nebuchadnezzar’s fate when he questioned God’s sovereignty. The greatness and splendour of the Babylonian kings were given to them by God and when Nebuchadnezzar became arrogant and hardened with pride, he was stripped of his kingdoms and driven away to live the life of an animal. Even though Nebuchadnezzar later acknowledged the most high God as the one in control, Belshazzar, his descendant, did not humble himself even after knowing all this. > Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways. > > Daniel 5:23 The words Mene, Mene, Tekel and Parsin written on the wall meant that God had numbered the days of Belshazzar as he did not give glory to God and his kingdom would soon be given to the Medes and the Persians. Even though the scholars could have translated the texts Mene, Mene, Tekel and Parsin to mean numbered, numbered, weighed and divided, it was still God who sent the message and held the key to decipher it also. In the words of a humble man of God, do not all interpretations belong to God. Daniel’s dreams of the four beasts and the ram and the goat helped him understand the will of God and when he read the writing on the wall, he could easily interpret God’s message. Unlike the first dream of the multi-metalled statue, we could see the process of how a prophet received a message from God which initially startled him, but later he could help translate it for the commoners. God can make the foolish wise and the wise foolish to accomplish His will and the meaning of his cryptic message remained hidden till Daniel was given the knowledge to interpret it. We should never take credit for the works that God does through us as we are nothing without His Grace. Still, we see people accepting gifts on God’s behalf. Saul tried to fool God by claiming that his intentions were to use the spoils for the temple of God but he was being ruled by his own desire. Let us stop trying to fool God and let go of the spotlight and reflect it back on God. > Then at Belshazzar’s command, Daniel was clothed in purple, a gold chain was placed around his neck, and he was proclaimed the third highest ruler in the kingdom. > > Daniel 5:29 The king had given his word in the presence of thousands of his subjects and doing anything against it would make him look weak. Moreover, we all have this habit of not accepting God’s decisions and try to pacify God. He too was trying that by bribing the man of God and hoping that it was not too late for God to change his mind. Let us not wait for the eleventh hour to change our ways but bring our problems and addictions before God and ask Him to solve it. > That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain, and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom, at the age of sixty-two. > > Daniel 5:30-31 Daniel was perhaps used to being exalted by the king after each of his interpretations. Remember this Daniel is different from the Daniel of the earlier chapters. The Daniel that we saw interpreting the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar was optimistic and waiting for God to save his people from their bondage. But this Daniel has been battered by the reality of knowing the extent of God’s curse on Israel and is struggling with the interpretations of his own dreams. We should always be on the lookout for our own pride and not let it rule over us. We are just empty vessels like the ones the king used to serve wine in. In isolation, those vessels have no value but when God started working, those mundane cutlery sets became the death of Belshazzar. Similarly, we must realize that without God, we are nothing and whatever impact we have on the lives of the people around us is only because of His Grace on us. Let us not blindly accept the goodwill from this world but redirect the goodwill back to God and Him alone.

Daniel 8 – And the Evenings and the Mornings were a Nightmare

In another vision that Daniel dreamt almost two years later into Belshazzar’s reign, he saw a great struggle between a ram and a goat. While there are countless theories on the meaning of these dreams that Daniel writes down, this one has a clear consensus, simply due to the fact that the angel of the Lord gave us the interpretation of the vision of the ram and the goat. THE DREAM The ram from Daniel’s dream had two horns, one greater than the other and represented the Medo-Persian Empire. The varying lengths of its horns could be symbolizing the fact that the Persians were more powerful than the Medes. > I watched the ram as it charged toward the west and the north and the south. No animal could stand against it, and none could rescue from its power. It did as it pleased and became great. > > Daniel 8:4 Daniel had no time to even process this weird imagery when suddenly, with great swiftness a goat with a single prominent horn right between its eyes, came and attacked the ram, shattering both its horns. > The ram was powerless to stand against it; the goat knocked it to the ground and trampled on it, and none could rescue the ram from its power. > > Daniel 8:7 https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/750026098368315522/775814384445423697/unknown.png [https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/750026098368315522/775814384445423697/unknown.png]Persian Empire during its peak Rams are bighorn animals that often settle disputes by slamming their head into others while goats are usually non-confrontational in nature. The Medo-Persian kings were brash in their approach when it came to toppling other empires while the Greeks moved swiftly but tactfully and amassed the largest unified kingdom in the entire ancient world. Many believe that the large central horn of the goat was Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great), who is widely regarded as the greatest king that ever lived. He hailed from Greece, which was westward of both Babylon and Persia and coincides with the direction of the appearance of the goat. But even this great king vanished suddenly from the face of the earth as he died within a week of contracting an illness at the young age of thirty-two. THE FALLOUT At the height of the goat’s power, its large horn was broken off and in its place, four new horns propped up. After the death of Alexander the great, four of his generals divided his kingdom for themselves. And out of these four horns, another king grew in power conquering countries towards the east and the south of the ‘Beautiful Land’, formerly known as Israel. > It grew until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw some of the starry host down to the earth and trampled on them. > > Daniel 8:10 Antiochus IV (175–164 B.C.) banned the circumcision ceremonies of the Jews, ended the practice of sacrificing at the temple in Jerusalem and intentionally defiled the temple and the Most Holy Place. His brash hostility towards the people of God leads many to believe that he was the little horn that even took down several prophets and men of God in his pursuit for Greek nationalism. However, the verse “threw starry host down to the earth” could also imply that this was not a physical warfare between kings of the earth but a spiritual one between God’s army of angels and the forces of evil and during their battle many starry hosts fell down. SACRIFICING EVERYTHING BUT YOUR HEART > Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to him, “How long will it take for the vision to be fulfilled …He said to me, “It will take 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be reconsecrated.” > > Daniel 8:13-14 The twenty-three hundred evenings and mornings that will be required to reconsecrate the sanctuary could be the actual time of three years (1115 days) it would take to sanctify the altar of God after the mess left behind by Antiochus IV. However, it can also be that this number doesn’t represent a period of time at all. It could simply be referring to Jesus’s death on the cross that sanctifies us and reconnects us with God. > Stop bringing meaningless offerings! > Your incense is detestable to me. > New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations — > I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. > > Isaiah 1:13 It is true that God doesn’t delight in our meaningless worship that we go through only as a formality and that too to please our earthly parents, rather He wants to truly commune with us. The reconsecration mentioned here could not be about Antiochus at all but about all of us. For all the corruption we have gone through by adopting the pagan traditions around us, it would take the blood of Jesus to cleanse and make us worthy to be ‘a living sacrifice’ for God. > Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. > > Romans 12:1 Daniel again is not able to make heads or tails of what this all meant when a voice called out to Gabriel and asked the angel of the Lord to explain the dream to Daniel. Even when revealing the great mysteries to Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel proclaimed that God was the one who reveals mysteries and he was just a vessel in God’s hands. This can now be clearly seen as he is struggling to discern even the meaning of his dreams. > Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into a pit? > > Luke 6:39 We tend to get influenced by mere mortals rather than the Immortal One. People like Daniel, Joseph and our present-day evangelists are only able to do as per God’s leading in their lives. They are all useless clay in the hands of the Potter and it is God who chooses to use them as He desires. Still, we base our faith on blind humans and end up falling into a ditch every time our leader falls in one. Gabriel identifies Daniel as a son of man and reveals the meaning of the dream to Daniel in great detail, highlighting the kings that the horns and animals represented and how they would subdue the people of God. There is no point in worrying about something that will happen in the future and is not under our control. We need to completely depend on God and trust His decisions for our lives. Gabriel knew that Daniel was perturbed by these visions and wanted him to know that these events won’t occur during his lifetime and he would not have to witness such great atrocities that will happen against the people of God. OUR NIGHTMARE Even though Daniel will not be alive to witness these events, his writings will encourage the people of God, when they will be going through the conditions that Gabriel so vividly describes for us. These days all our photos and documents are stored in the cloud. Imagine if that connection was disrupted, what a nightmarish scenario that would be. We will not be able to find rest till the connection to the cloud is restored and we can retrieve our photos and personal data. Anytime we are not allowed to commune with God, it would be hell on earth for us. Our soul cannot find rest till the connection to our maker is restored. Imagine our evenings and mornings when we are not able to commune with God, that should be our nightmarish scenario. Let us rejoice that God sent His Son to restore that broken connection and put an end to our nightmare.