Book of Daniel: Life Lessons

Part 1

Tim Moore: Well said, Dave, before we move on from Daniel, it is appropriate to spend one more week applying life lessons from this great prophet. The parallels between his experience and our own era are multiplying year by year, and there is much to learn from this mighty man of God. So, let’s jump into some applications from Daniel’s life. And let’s begin by analyzing Daniel himself. What kind of a character was he?

Nathan Jones: Well, he was a man of honor, he stood by his convictions. When the culture said you must conform to our worldly ways, he said, I’m going to test it, and God always honored the fact that he stood up for his faith.

Tim Moore: Surely did.

David Bowen: You know I look at when people, everybody has a reputation, and depends what kind of people you’re around, what your reputation is, but one thing I really appreciate about Daniel, is when they try to find something wrong with him, they found one thing. His love for God. And if people can look at me and say they don’t like me because of one thing, it would be that one thing, my love for God.

Nathan Jones: And it’s interesting how the Bible points to Daniel, Jesus himself, I mean Daniel was a real person, Jesus mentioned him.

David Bowen: Yes.

Nathan Jones: And the Bible mentions that Daniel’s character was pretty much without any inherent flaws, inherent sins. He wasn’t stricken like David was with lust, or Elijah with doubt. He seemed, at least from what he recorded, a consistent believer, a model to look up to.

Tim Moore: He surely was. And you know, there’s a point we’re going to make even now as we talk about Daniel, as we’ve reviewed all his prophecies, there’s only so much time in any episode. So if you want to learn more about Daniel, more about the prophecies, I’d encourage you to go to our website where we have posted a wealth of material. And Nathan, what are some of the things that are there for our viewers who want to dive even deeper than we have during these weeks?

Nathan Jones: Well, if you go to our website at ChristinProphecy.org or go to our YouTube channel, which is Christ in Prophecy, you can watch the video and underneath it we’ll have links to Deep Dives with Dave Bowen as Dave gives you more insight through his Deep Dive series. We have a Prophetic Perspective series. We have an entire Lamplighter dedicated. Vic Batista and I have an entire blog series and podcast series that we did. So if you want to go really into Daniel, our website’s got a plethora of information to help you.

Tim Moore: It surely does. Well, we’ve talked about Daniel being a character worthy of being an exemplar, a role model for us. I would also submit that he lived in a pagan land where he and other faithful Jews were clearly in the minority, as a matter of fact, sometimes those who resented them actually tried to conspire against them because of their jealousy and create accusations that were false. But there’s an application, I’ll call it application number one for today’s conversation, and that is in spite of serving in a pagan land and serving pagan kings involuntarily, I mean, he was essentially enslaved, Daniel’s service was still faithful and true. And we obviously live in a pagan age, and an ungodly land, but our service, even to a boss or to a supervisor that may not agree with our faith, still needs to be faithful and true.

David Bowen: There were multiple pagan leaders too, so it was Babylon, it was Persia, so that showed his character. And the one thing I really appreciate about Daniel, is he’s a real person because you look at characters in the Bible sometimes you say, well, I could never be like that. What was the key to Daniel? He read God’s Word. He studied it and he believed it. We all can have that kind of faith. We all can read God’s Word, study it and then put it to practicality.

Nathan Jones: And I think his example points us to Colossians 3:23, “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward for your inheritance.” That’s exactly what Daniel did. He did everything for the Lord. Even if he had to serve pagan kings, he was put in charge of sorcerers and wizards, of all things, and yet he stayed faithful to God. He prayed three times a day. And the Lord blessed him by promoting him, by keeping him alive, and by teaching generations after him to the point where the Magi 500 years later showed up, they understood because Daniel taught. What a legacy.

Tim Moore: What a legacy. That’s a great point, Nathan. That we need to serve as unto the Lord regardless of where we are. I also think of 1 Corinthians 10:31, where Paul says, “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Too often we buy into the lie that, well, I’ll just be godly in my church role or when I’m doing faithful things, but the rest of my life, I don’t have to really think about it. No, we exude Christ in all we do. And so, whether we’re eating, drinking, working, sleeping, everything should be informed by our faith in Christ, and he should resonate and really reflect in us.

David Bowen: Done for His glory. All for the glory of God.

Tim Moore: Always.

Nathan Jones: Amen. Well, the second application, I would say, is that Daniel believed God’s promises. He wasn’t always happy with God’s promises. I think in the series, Dave, you brought up a great point, is that Daniel was expecting the kingdom to come at 70 years, he had read the Jewish people would come back. And Gabriel’s like, well.

David Bowen: It’s going to be longer.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, you’ve got 490 years and he didn’t even tell him about the Church Age. You know, and like you said, Daniel would spend three weeks depressed over that. You know we’re depressed because we want the Rapture to come, and it’s been 2,000 years. It’s like, Lord, why? Daniel showed that even though, you know, God’s timing is not our own, we have to be patient and we have to trust in God’s promises. He will make them come about, but we just have to be faithful and wait.

David Bowen: So how do you apply that? I know myself what I’ve got to do, I have those pity parties. I get to the point, I say, God, just call it game over. Just come back now. And every time I have that pity party, I go to my corner and I do what Daniel does, I try to pray and God gives me this picture of the multitude of people who have not come to Christ yet.

Tim Moore: Oh, boy.

Nathan Jones: Yes.

David Bowen: And when I see that multitude I go, okay, we have to get back and be faithful and do what God’s called us.

Nathan Jones: That is something that you say all the time, Tim is that if the Lord came back before you were born, there’d be no you, or you wouldn’t be saved.

Tim Moore: If the Lord came back according to my timing, He would have come back 20 years ago because I was ready for Him then. And then some of you or some of even our staff and our friends and loved ones would have been left behind. I’m thankful that the Lord doesn’t come back, according to Tim Moore’s timing, but according to His timing, and I’ve come to realize that that is right and good. And not only do I accept it, I’m thankful for it. You know, I think you made a good point. What do we do even if sometimes we feel like we want to have a pity party because the Lord is tarrying and beyond our own expectations. Last week we talked about the Apostles themselves, right as Jesus was about to ascend expected, well is it now that the Kingdom is coming? No, it’s not now, you guys got work to do. Get busy. And so that’s exactly what He would say to us.

And in our culture back to application one, we live in an increasingly pagan culture. I call it a cut flower Christianity culture, because we’re still seeing some of the beauty that was, but the roots of our Christian foundations have been cut off, and eventually the flower of our society is going to wilt and fade. Already Christians are labeled as troublers, to use a phrase King Ahab used to describe Elijah. And so we are impediments to modern progress. You know what, folks? We should be applying ourselves. And as the Lord tarries we trust Him. We believe Him. And so we need to be about the work He’s given us to share the Gospel and to be intentional about living for Christ day by day.

Nathan Jones: Absolutely. I think the third application that I get is Daniel studied God’s Word. He went to the prophets. He went and read Jeremiah. He read Ezekiel. He studied the Law; he became an expert at the Law. And he had the ears of kings, and governors, and satraps, later in the Medo-Persian Empire. And so, the God of Heaven, even though these Jewish people were in exile, got to hear the Word of God. And I think he adopted something that would come much later, this promise in Revelation 1:3, “Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it for the time is near.” They read, they hear and they keep, and those are the three things Daniel did and those are the three things we can do.

Tim Moore: That’s a great point. And Dave, I’m going to give this to you because you’ve made a major teaching from Daniel 9. But Daniel was led to utter a prayer of repentance on behalf of his people because chapter nine, verse two tells us he had studied the word of Jeremiah. He studied Bible prophecy and then it informed the way that he interacted with God on behalf of his people.

David Bowen: Yeah, he knew Isaiah, he knew Hosea, he knew the Scriptures. He knew Cyrus would be the one to send them back, you know the 70 years to be back. But there’s a danger here because as a chapter nine, as he’s praying, the angel Gabriel came to him, and as the angel Gabriel came to him, he was in the middle of prayer. I mean, he’s worshipping God, he’s in the middle of prayer and he says, “Stop because he said, you’re going to miss the point here.” And I think the lesson is, the application is we want to put human reasoning into our study sometimes. We’re going to study this, we’re going to say this, and we’re not going to quite understand it, but we think we understand it and say, well, I think the Bible means here, and we get off into human reasoning. And that becomes something can be a very, very dangerous. Scripture interprets Scripture and we need to stay true to God’s Word.

Tim Moore: All right, there’s another thing I want to dig into on this application, Nathan. We know that Daniel didn’t just write in Hebrew. He wrote in another language which would suggest that his prophecies were not just for his people, let me just gather my throng around me and we’ll just talk amongst ourselves. What other language did he write in and what does that tell us about the intent for God to share this prophecy and this Prophetic Word, even to the pagan peoples Daniel was living among?

Nathan Jones: Well, sure, he shifted from Hebrew to Aramaic, starting in chapter two. And the reason was, is because the pagan world didn’t speak Hebrew only to Jewish people. So we knew then that the audience for Daniel shifted to those people. Plus, going forward, over the hundreds of years as he becomes head over the Magi, they would learn from Aramaic as well, and they would be able to interpret that based on that. So, he realized that you have to connect people where they’re at. My old mission classes used to teach, you know, you got to be where the people are. And if you’re speaking German and you’re in an audience in Spain, they’re not understanding you. You have to speak the language and at the level that people are at. And that’s what Daniel did. And the Lord using visions and dreams, connected divine thoughts, divine ideas to human understanding. And so when we teach the Bible and we share it with others, whether in a Sunday school or whatever, that’s what we need to do. We need not talk over their heads, or talk in a different language, we connect to people where they’re out. So as part of the application of studying, it’s also sharing and teaching. And that’s what you got to be where your audience is.

Tim Moore: You surely do. And that’s why sometimes people ask, what translation of the Bible do you use? We have always primarily used the New American Standard Bible because we find that it is a literal interpretation that is easy to understand. I love the beauty of the King James, but some of the phraseology in the King James, you have to actually interpret for modern era or modern ears. I could give you examples. We have moved on primarily to the Legacy Standard Bible because it has a harkening back to the original names of God in Hebrew. But always we encourage you to find a Bible translation that is literal and that is understandable and read it and the Lord will bless you. And so that’s the application for your day and age and your life. All right. What about number four, Dave? Anything that you would see as a fourth application for us?

David Bowen: Well, again, I think with prayer I think Daniel was interesting because he talked in third person up to chapter seven and then in chapter seven, when the prophecies begin, he speaks in first person. He personalizes it. Do we understand the promises that God has in His word are for us personally? I mean, when God speaks, He speaks to us as individuals as well. There’s a corporate speaking here, but Daniel switching from third person to first person to me was huge because now I can identify with this and incorporate it in my own personal life.

Tim Moore: And I think that ties to the last application about studying and teaching.

David Bowen: Yes. Yes.

Nathan Jones: I would say for the fourth application, it’s Daniel’s prayer life. Because here Daniel is around pagans, you know, we feel uncomfortable when we have to pray in public. I even feel uncomfortable sometimes praying at dinner around my family, you know, it’s just to me, prayer is between the Lord and me. But Daniel made sure that even when there was an edict that said, you can’t worship any other god, but the king for this month, he still, three times a day, went up to his balcony and prayed. And when he prayed, did he pray, “O Lord, bless me and give me money and health and welfare?”

David Bowen: No.

Nathan Jones: No, he said, “Lord,” even though Daniel’s a righteous man, “Lord, I am a sinner. My people are sinners. Forgive us please.

Tim Moore: That was the point Jesus made when witnessing two different characters praying at the temple. And He said, “This man who came and said, I’m a sinner. His prayer was heard more readily than the righteous Pharisee.” And so that’s a great point you’re making from Daniel’s life.

David Bowen: And again, through Isaiah, he knew that repentance was key to the kingdom coming, the kingdom will not come into the people are repenting. So, he through his study in Scripture, he incorporated that into his prayer. And that became part of his prayer.

Nathan Jones: And that’s what Jesus said, the return of the Messiah won’t happen until the Jewish people repent and they look up and say, “Baruch haba b’Shem Adonai,” Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. And that is the trigger that makes Jesus come at the Second Coming. And so, I think we need to, I used to teach the kids, you know, how to pray, you know, praise, repent, ask and yield, P-R-A-Y, is that we forget sometimes, I know I work on it is the repentance part. We kind of skip over that in our prayers and we spend more of the ask part.

David Bowen: And I think it’s important for intercessory prayer as well.

Nathan Jones: Yeah.

David Bowen: Because that’s what Daniel is doing. He was praying for his country, he was praying, he’s repenting not only for himself but for his nation.

Tim Moore: Okay. So I want to follow up on that. How do we do that? Because there are so many people who will turn at least every year at the National Day of Prayer to 2 Chronicles 7:14 “If my people who were called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, and then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sin and will heal their land.” This is a promise given to Israel, but the principle applies to us. And yet do we, do you see many Christians taking personal responsibility for the corporate sins of our nation? And is that something we should follow after Daniel’s model?

David Bowen: I’m a pastor. Can I say the church is at fault for some of this? Because we don’t preach sin. We want people to come to church.

Nathan Jones: Wrong choices.

David Bowen: Yeah, you made an error or you have wrong judgment. If I make a mistake, I don’t need to repent, I just need to fix the mistake. So, I think the church needs to also say we need to understand what sin is and call sin out. Because when we have sin, then we have something to repent of and when we repent, then we understand what the Word of God is.

Nathan Jones: Can you imagine, I love, whether you believe and follow Jonathan Cahn or not, He does something right is that every time there’s an election, he has a time of repentance, a national time. Franklin Graham, same thing, national time of repentance to call people. That’s what the Lord is looking for. He’s looking for our nation, and all the nations that will repent and turn to Him. They’re pagans they won’t. But you know, the Lord still wants his people to do it. And so it’s our job as followers of Him not just to read and pray and all, but to supplicant ourselves, if I can use a big theological term to say, “Lord, you are God, you are King, please forgive us.” And hope that the Lord’s blessing on His people spreads out to the country.

Tim Moore: The greatest revival that ever occurred in history was at Nineveh, when from the king to the lowliest persons and even the animals in the fields, they covered in sackcloth and ashes to demonstrate their humility before the Lord God. I think we could take a lesson from Daniel, this great and revered man who has no character flaw, as we discussed earlier, and yet he humbled himself before God and took personal responsibility. I think he’s a great example. And I also find it telling that it was right after that moment of personal confession and repentance, then is when Gabriel visited. I think sometimes if we were truly to humble ourselves before God and have that kind of penitent heart, yeah, my sins have been forgiven, but, I don’t gloat in that fact. I rejoice in Christ and the forgiveness that is mine. But having a penitent attitude and a humble heart coming before the Lord, I think then revelation is given and granted to us.

David Bowen: That humble heart is very important. Again, I, as a pastor, I get to ask the question, “If you died today, would you go to heaven?” You know they don’t get to offended because they know who I am, and “Yeah, I hope so.” And so I follow up with, “Well, why is that?” “Well, I’m a good person.” And I used to say, “Well, good people don’t go to Heaven. Perfect people do. So are you perfect?” Well, then people say, “Well, I know I’m not perfect.” So, to me, this becomes part of being righteous. When God calls someone righteous as it does Daniel, how do I become righteous? What is being righteous? Well, it’s trusting God, knowing who we are, humbling ourselves, bowing before Him, saying, I am not perfect. I can only have eternal life because of who Christ is. That is a being called in Christ. Because He is perfect.

Tim Moore: Yes.

Nathan Jones: Yes.

David Bowen: So, it’s not good people, it’s about being righteous.

Tim Moore: That’s a gospel application right there.

Nathan Jones: And I’m still trying to get the picture out of my mind of a bunch of sheep dressed in sackcloth with ashes all over, that must have been quite a sight at the time period.

Tim Moore: It must have been quite a sight. But I think it just demonstrates the convincing of the king and everyone else that we need to make a drastic sign of our humility before the Lord.

Nathan Jones: And you use humility and use humbleness and I think those are good to fit into application number five, is that the fact that we can study Bible prophecy, we can have the Holy Spirit, we can have great teachers and great commentaries, but there is going to be parts of prophecy we won’t understand until the event is fulfilled. I like to think of prophecy as a picture that my wife loves those puzzles pieces she puts, I don’t know how she does it, but you got 100-piece puzzle, but we’ve only got 75 of the pieces put together right now. We can kind of see a picture, but we don’t have the big picture. So we have to be humble enough to realize we don’t have all the answers when it comes to prophecy. Not until these prophecies are fulfilled.

Tim Moore: Excellent point. Excellent point.

David Bowen: Using jigsaw puzzle I think our world, when you have a worldview understanding this about prophecy and what it is, because prophecy can be overwhelming. It can really be overwhelming trying to understand it. What’s a worldview? Do you really understand who God is and following Him? And I think we get a little bit of this, a little bit this, a little bit this, and I say we don’t have a worldview, we have a mutt. And it’s like taking a jigsaw puzzle, but if you take pieces from two or three puzzle, they don’t connect. And unless we dive into Scripture and understand Scripture, understand prophecy and the promises and everything that we have to gain from that and humble ourselves to yield to Him, we don’t get that jigsaw puzzle. We don’t get the complete picture that we need to have. And some of it we’re not going to understand.

Tim Moore: We’re not going to understand until it is hindsight for us, because some things we’re still gazing forward through a glass dimly, just like Daniel was. And so we recognize that we can’t know it all. I’d love to know it all.

David Bowen: I thought you did.

Tim Moore: No, I clearly don’t, my wife can tell you. But everything we do know about prophecy heeds to this truism, and that’s from Revelation 19:10, “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Everything that is prophetic in the Word of God points us to Christ. And so as long as we are focusing on Him, then we will gain a blessing. And of course, believing the Word of God is how we heed even words of prophecy. But here’s a distinction between us at Lamb & Lion Ministries and too often other prophetic teachers. Some will claim to know it all. You just heard Nathan say, we don’t and we don’t even aspire that we can know it all. God knows it all. He has given revelation. We seek to have understanding. Those things that are clear we’re going to share with you. Interpretations we think are pretty obvious we’re going to share with you, but with a degree of humility, because only God is God. And the mysteries He’s revealed are for us and our children forever is Deuteronomy 29:29 says. But there are aspects that only God can know, and we don’t have the mind of God. My head would explode if He tried to give me all of His knowledge, Nathan.

Nathan Jones: And that’s why Daniel went through the same thing. The angel gave him all these prophecies and he’s like, what? And the angel says, nope. And he says this Daniel 12:13, “But you go your way, (in other words, keep living) till the end (in other words, you are going to die); for you shall rest and you will arise (be resurrected) to your inheritance at the end of days.” In other words, you don’t have to know it all. You don’t have to know how everything’s going to play out, live by faith. That’s why I love Habakkuk 2:4, “the just shall live by faith.” That is the answer that we get from God throughout, Jonah, Job, Habakkuk, they all ask the same questions, and every time God says, “Go your way, just live your life, trust Me.”

David Bowen: And what does it mean to go your way? It means to do what I’ve told you to do.

Nathan Jones: Exactly.

Tim Moore: Share the Gospel. Live a life that is salt and light to the world around you. Go your way, living godly lives, and it’ll all work out.

David Bowen: Right. And it’s exciting because as you get into prophecy, Zechariah, the prophets, you know, they weren’t aware of what’s happening. But we live in a day where we can look back and see things and it makes more sense. So we have more responsibility, I think, because we can have that insight. It’s exciting to say, okay, what the prophets were told about like at our day.

Tim Moore: We’re witnessing. Yes, we have hindsight and we can also see, as we said earlier, the convergence. Just look around, for heaven’s sake. As Dave Reagan likes to say, a buddy of his said, I wished I lived in Bible times, and his response was, you do, you do. We live in Bible times in that all these various signs that were foretold are coming to pass. I love one other exemplar and it is so important that we grasp this, Abraham was given promises, prophetic promises, if you will, because they were future to happen and come to pass, but they didn’t come to pass in the life of Abraham. And yet that did not dull his trust in God. His faith in God.

Nathan Jones: He wayward a little with Hagar, but.

Tim Moore: He was not perfect, but his faith was resolute. And so even though he didn’t see in his lifetime a multitude of descendants, even though he did not possess in his lifetime the land of Canaan, he wandered as a sojourner, living in tents, he still trusted God. And we may or may not see all the things come to pass. I hope we do. I think we will. But if we don’t, if the Lord calls me home today or tomorrow, I still will be faithful and trust Him that His promises are yes and amen.

David Bowen: And Abraham means father of many. Could you imagine introducing yourself? What’s your name? Abraham. How many kids do you have?

Tim Moore: Well, there he is right there.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, my wife’s 90, and she—.

Tim Moore: Yeah, well, folks, we pray that we have encouraged you to trust in the Lord’s promises throughout this series. Obviously, the applications we’ve touched on today are first of all, that Daniel served a pagan king involuntarily, but he did so faithfully and true. And we too live in a pagan, ungodly land, but wherever we serve, we serve as unto the Lord. Application two Daniel believed God and His promises even though they did not always impact his life personally or be fulfilled during his lifetime. Application three Daniel studied God’s Word and believed it, and this led him to order his life around God’s promises. And really live as a beacon of that truth, even to the pagan people that he was among. Number four, Daniel applied a first person understanding of how the prophecies impacted his life, and because he realized that God’s timing of deliverance from exile was approaching, he began to personally pray for the repentance of his people, and in doing so with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. And number five, there were limits to Daniel’s understanding of God’s prophetic Word. As gifted as he was, and he was not put off by the things he did not understand. He trusted God, that God would bring it all to fulfillment. And so do we.

Closing

Tim Moore: So, as we wind down this series of episodes on the Book of Daniel, there is so much more we could say, but we hope that we have whet your appetite to jump into God’s Word and study it for yourself.

Nathan Jones: And as we’ve mentioned throughout the series, Todd Hampson’s book, “The Non-Prophet’s Guide to the Book of Daniel,” would be a great resource for your study. Todd has a unique ability to communicate complex ideas, and his illustrations and graphics make the book fun to read. We would be glad to send you a copy. Just call the number on the screen or visit our online store and for only $20, and that includes shipping and handling, we’ll send you Todd’s fantastic book.

David Bowen: This has been such an exciting and encouraging series. I’m glad I could have participated in at least part of it. So, thank you for that. And Tim, where do we go next?

Tim Moore: Well, there is never a lack of material for us to dive into from God’s prophetic Word. But in the weeks to come, we’re going back to the future once again, meaning that we are going to unpack the Book of Revelation.

David Bowen: Oh, we could spend weeks in the Book of Revelation. That’s one of my favorite books. I mean, it ties together all kinds of prophecies.

Nathan Jones: And I agree with Dave. So, what do you say, Tim? Should we spend about a year studying the book of Revelation?

Tim Moore: Well, not quite. You are both right that we could linger for many, many weeks in Revelation. Let’s just say that we will proceed apace, meaning that we will not rush, but we will again hope to whet appetites and point people to our soon returning King as we explore His revelation of the things which must soon take place.

For now, we hope that our review of Daniel has been a blessing to you. And we hope that it has reaffirmed or kindled your anticipation of God’s fulfillment of all His prophetic Word.

As we seek understanding, I find encouragement in God revelation of things to come to a pagan king. Nebuchadnezzar was given a vision, “In order that the living may know that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whom He wishes and sets over it the lowliest of men.”

You know, we are lowly men, but God has given to us His wonderful prophetic Word, and He is promised that soon His Son will come to reign over the earth from Mount Zion. With anticipation for that glorious day all of us here at Lamb & Lion Ministries cry out Maranatha. Godspeed.

End of Program