This study, of Daniel chapters 5-12, taught by Pastor Barry Forder, is the 28th session of our ‘Through-the-Bible-in-a-Year’ series recorded during 2014 as part of our Sunday morning family services.
Daniel served as a chief adviser to two successive world empires, a feet unrivaled in history. Yet he was a man that loved God more than wealth, fame or position. We read that he ‘purposed in his heart not to be defiled’. How we need Daniel’s today that will take their stand for God, even if that means being thrown into a lions den (ch 6), and then trust God with what happens. The first six chapters of Daniel are mainly historical. In this study we pick it up in Chapter 5, where we have recorded the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C. to the Persian army under Cyrus the Great. From Chapter 7-12 we find a series of dramatic dreams and prophetic visions that are breathtaking and so detailed that many critics have tried to say Daniel must have been written after the events! For example, in chapter 11 we find 135 prophecies in just 34 verses – all of which have been fulfilled to the letter and are now a matter of history! Yet there are still a number of prophecies that are yet to be fulfilled in the days we are living in – including the fulfillment of the ‘Seventy Weeks’ prophecy recorded in chapter 9. Arguably this is the most incredible single prophecy in the Bible, and may well have been what Peter was thinking of when he spoke of the ‘more sure word of prophecy’ as being a more tangible and irrefutable proof of the authority of God’s word than even his own eye-witness experience.
Paul warned Christians not to be ignorant, and Daniel is a book that all Christians need to be acquainted with if we are to understand the signs of the times.
May this overview prompt you to undertake your own study of this divinely inspired book.
The PDF slides are from the PowerPoint presentation used during the teaching session.
You can listen to the audio on this web page, or save it for later listening.
