I’m about two weeks away from finishing up our Wednesday night study of Daniel. Yesterday our class completed chapter eleven, which involved about two-hundred years worth of war, political machinations, backstabbing, conquest, defeat, and more all prophetically told to Daniel long before any of it ever took place. As the text moved into chapter twelve, Daniel is told to take all the prophesy he was given and “seal it up” like a scroll whose writing is complete (ch12:4).
Books bound with durable covers to protect the pages from the elements were not yet invented; scrolls were the primary method of recording large volumes of text. Jewish scrolls were rolled at the ends and joined in the middle, with the text only written on the inside of the paper. The outside remained blank and could endure any damage that came to it, preserving the writing on the interior of the scroll.
So when God tells Daniel to seal up the scroll of prophesy He isn’t telling the prophet to keep the words a secret. He’s telling him to keep the words protected and preserved. Until when? According to the text, until “the time of the end.” In other words, the words of Daniel predicted things to come in the future and until those things came to pass (confirming the prophesy) those words needed to be preserved.
Here’s the big difference between the prophets and prophecies of the Bible vs the fake so-called prophets of the modern day (who make a pretty penny swindling people on the Trinity Broadcast Network and such like): The Bible’s prophets predicted things to come and then, when those things happened, they were able (or the readers of their words were able) to say “look, see, just like God predicted,” thus confirming the Word of God is true.
Fake prophets can’t do that. It’s why they always say “this will happen soon!” or “in the days to come you will see all these things!” but those days never arrive. They just keep stringing people along without any date of fulfilment ever occurring.
I say all that to say this: There are false prophets today who love to take the words of Daniel out of context, and make prophecies about things which they say are “about to happen.” In fact, the things Daniel predicts in his book have already happened. They were future predictions when he wrote them, and those predictions came true, confirming Daniel as a prophet of God.
Today there are liars who will twist Daniel’s words to talk about prophecies that they claim will come true in 2022. Those same people preached those same sermons and said the prophecies would be done in 2021. They said it would come to pass in 2020 before that. And they predicted Daniel’s words would be realized in 2019 before that. And on it goes. Next year they’ll say “Daniel’s words will be fulfilled in 2023!” and they’ll convince enough people to give them enough money to buy another jet.
The fact is Daniel’s words in chapter eleven were about the rise and fall of Alexander the Great, the so-called Syrian Wars, the abuses of Antiochus IV against the Jews, and ultimately, the coming of the Messiah Jesus Christ. He wasn’t writing about the 2024 election of Michelle Obama or some nonsense like that. He wasn’t making predictions about the 2022 midterms or about whatever Russia or China does this year that will dominate the news cycle for a day and a half.
Daniel’s words have already been fulfilled. That doesn’t mean they’re unimportant. That doesn’t mean they don’t need to be studied. On the contrary, studying them helps to prove the inspiration of the writer and reinforces our understanding of the Bible as the infallible Word of God.
You can take many applications from Daniel’s words, so long as you remember that the prophecies found in his book have already occurred…and they didn’t occur last year or last decade, and they’re not about to come true this year or next. In short, just stop listening to the crackpot on TBN who only wants to sell you his overpriced book.
Daniel’s words came true in Daniel’s near future and in our distant history. Stop trying to make Daniel come true in 2022!
~ Matthew