Tues.’s Devo - The Final Kingdoms

Read: Daniel 8:1-27; 1 John 2:1-17; Psalm 120:1-7; Provers 28:25-26 Daniel saw this next vision standing in the very fortress that Esther would years later come to call her home. Belshazzar was the king now. In Daniel’s vision he saw a ram with two long horns standing beside the river. One of the horns had grown longer than the other one. The ram was fearless and no one could stand up to him. Suddenly a male goat appeared from the west with one huge horn on his head. He shared the ram and broke off both his horns. The goat trampled the ram to the ground and no one could help him. This goat became very powerful but in the height of his power, his horn was broken off. Four horns pointing in the four directions of the earth grew in its place. From on of the horns came a small horn whose power grew very great. It extended toward the land of Israel. Its power reached into the heavens and attacked the heavenly army, throwing some of the heavenly beings and some of the stars to the ground and trampling them. It even challenged the Commander of heaven’s army by canceling the daily sacrifices offered to him and by destroying his Temple. The army of heaven was restrained from responding to their rebellion. The horn was able to succeed in everything it did. Daniel heard the two holy ones talking and one asked the other how long the rebellion would last and how long the Temple and heaven’s army be trampled on? He responded, 2,300 evenings and mornings. As Daniel was trying to make sense of the meaning of what he had just seen, Gabriel was told to tell Daniel the meaning. When Gabriel approached Daniel, he fell to the ground in reverence. Gabriel explained that the vision had to do with the end of time. The two-horned ram represented the kings of Media and Persia. The shaggy male goat represented the king of Greece. The large horn between his eyes repented the first king of the Greek Empire. The four horns that replace the large horn showed that the Greek Empire would break into four kingdoms, but none as great as the first. Then a fierce king would arise and become very strong. He will do a shocking amount of destruction and harm and succeed in everything he does. He will destroy powerful leaders and devastate the holy people. He will be a master of deception and be very arrogant. He will destroy people without warning and even take on the Prince of princes in battle and be broken by them. The last thing he told Daniel was that this wouldn’t happen for a long time so he was not to tell it yet. Daniel was so overwhelmed by what he had seen he was sick for several days. He stayed troubled for a while. John wrote his letter to beg the believers not to sin and to love one another. That is the theme of his whole teaching. We have the power not to sin once we become a child of God. God’s spirit now lives in us and it is the power to overcome. But, if we do sin, we have and advocate who pleads our case before the Father. That advocate is Jesus Christ. The fact that we don’t want to sin and choose not to sin shows the Father how much we love him. John reminds them of the old commandment that is still very much alive today: love one another. We can not live in light and hate a fellow believer. John exhorted all types of believers because their sins had been forgiven, they knew that Christ existed from the beginning, they had won their battle with the evil one, they knew the Father and they were strong. He warned them not to love the world because it would draw them away from the love of the Father. Eternal life is the reward of those who do what pleases the Father. Lord, Thank you for your love for us in the midst of our struggles and failures. You are our hope and our salvation.