DANIEL 11
Read Daniel 11:2-45
Now we get the content of the revelation that Daniel spoke of at the beginning of Chapter 10. And, unusually, it is not so much a vision as a detailed verbal narrative. It speaks at some length of ‘what will happen in the future . . . concerning a time yet to come’ (10:14). What follows is a detailed exposition of the wars and political events of the next few hundred years in the region. Some of it we can identify with some degree of confidence. There are three Persian emperors to come who will give way to a more powerful one who will engage in a war with Greece – this would seem to be Xerxes who did just that. A mighty king will rise up who will be even greater – Alexander the Great. Then his empire will be broken up, but not go to his descendants; Alexander’s empire went to four of his leading generals. And there are many more details of history set out in this passage that can be attributed with greater or lesser confidence to specific people in history and their various deeds, positive and negative.
This is all very interesting if you like history; but of what relevance is it to either Daniel or ourselves? I think the point is that God has sovereignty over the historical process. You can look at history and see all the political and military manoeuvrings that people make, which they do for their own reasons and for the benefit of themselves, according to their own motives. But God uses all this to bring about his will. And that has been the overarching theme of the book of Daniel as a whole; in spite of appearances, God is in control and his will prevails over all else.
And that is a great comfort to us all. As we read our newspapers and look at our TV screens we see a world in turmoil. We could easily be driven to despair. The state of the world is much the same as it was in Daniel’s day, and in the description of events to come that Daniel was given. All sorts of terrible things happen as people pursue their political and military aims – we need only to look at the war currently being waged by the President of Russia in Ukraine.
God is in control. In 6th century BC Babylon it looked like Persia was in control. In the 4th century BC it looked like Alexander the Great was in control. In the time of Jesus and Paul it looked like the Romans were in control. And today . . . Whatever goes on we can have confidence that God is control. That is not to say there will not be hard times – there have always been struggles throughout history – but God will have the ultimate victory, which he has already achieved in and through his son, our saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.