Daniel, Part 8, The GOAT
17As Gabriel approached the place where I was standing, I became so terrified that I fell with my face to the ground. “Son of man,” he said, “you must understand that the events you have seen in your vision relate to the time of the end.” (Daniel 8:17)
The eighth chapter of the Book of Daniel reveals the second vision that the prophet had received from God. This vision, involving a two-horned ram, and a mighty goat with one horn, is believed to have been revealed to Daniel around 551 BC, when Daniel was about 70-years-old. The vision accurately predicts the coming power struggle for the empires of the world. The two-horned ram represented the Medo-Persian empire, which was ruled by the King of the Medes and the King of Persia. A mighty goat from the west (Greece) crushes the ram with his single horn. This would happen when Alexander the Great swept across Asia from Macedonia and crushed the Medo-Persian empire. Alexander the Great is considered one of the greatest generals of all time, so Daniel’s vision of the Greek empire being represented by a goat is fitting for our current pop-culture acronym of someone being a G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time). Alexander the Great died at the early age of 33 (interesting that Jesus was also believed to only be 33 years old at the time of His crucifixion), and the Macedonian empire was divided into four parts. This is represented in Daniel’s vision when the single horn on the ram is broken off and “four prominent horns pointing in the four directions of the earth” (Daniel 8:8) grow in its place. What is incredible about Daniel’s vision is that he received this message about two hundred years before Alexander the Great was born.
In the vision, God sends the Angel Gabriel to explain the dream to Daniel. My Life Application Study Bible had an interesting explanation for this act from God. In the footnotes for the verse above, the author writes: “Sometimes in our darkest moments, we don’t even have to ask God for help-He knows what we need. He knew Daniel’s mind and desire to understand. Let us thank God that He helps us when we don’t even ask! He may not send an angel to speak to you, but He will often reveal His divine wisdom and insight to you. The closer the relationship you have with Him, the more likely you are to receive these kinds of insights from Him.” (The Life Application Bible, pg 1422, footnote 8:15).
I have, unfortunately, been in a period of slight darkness with the Men’s Bible Study my neighbor and I launched shortly after I returned from my deployment to Poland. My neighbors wanted to restart the Bible Study we had launched prior to the deployment; they committed to reading the entire Holy Bible in nine-months following the CSRDD: Deployed reading plan. Well, we started this back in May, meaning our nine-month mission has stretched two months longer than planned. There has been a lot of good that has come from this Bible Study, mostly all my posts on this platform lately have come from me rereading of the Bible. One of the guys just finished reading the entire Bible from cover-to-cover for the first time in his life. However, the group’s attendance has been at the lowest ever. Two weeks ago, when the weather was cooler, I set up our chairs around the firepit and lit a fire to have the last meeting outside in the cool spring air. As the start time approached, I received text message after text from the group saying they were not going to make it. Then just yesterday, the neighbor who was the main motivator to launch the Bible Study in the first place messaged me, stating he was taking a step back from our group. The rigid reading pace had left him frustrated and too far behind to catch up. I responded with encouraging words that he was welcome to come even if he had not read our current plan for each meeting. In reality, only the neighbor that just wrapped up his first reading of the Bible and I had kept up. Many of the other men got bogged down in the long books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, but they had continued to show up, and even without reading the material, we still had engaging conversations. But a little over a month ago, when we were discussing the Book of Jeremiah and I pointed out Jeremiah’s prophecies about how angry God was at the Israelites for the way they were treating the foreigner, I finally asked the obvious tough question for the group that definitely needed to be asked. If you are a regular reader here, you probably remember those posts. That was the last meeting my neighbor across the street attended. I really hope that when I pointed out how celebrating the current government’s attack on foreigners went against not just what Jesus preached, but also what prophets as far back as Jeremiah clearly spoke out against, I hope this was not the reason a few of the men quit the group. However, since that discussion, participation from the group has not been strong. No one has specifically stated that by calling out the current president’s actions as being anti-Christian was the reason they have abandoned our Bible Study, but if it was, truthfully, then they obviously need to start reading the Bible from the beginning again because they have missed the most important truth within its pages.
So, after having no one show up for our 18th gathering two weeks ago, leading up to last night’s meeting, I had no response from the group text thread. One neighbor called me at 7:05 to see if anyone had shown up. He apologized for being late again and we talked about moving the meeting to 7:30 when we attempt to come together for the second to last session on March 26. After I got off the phone with him, my amazing wife sat in and, being the sweet person she is, she asked to hear what I had planned for the discussion. I began sharing my notes and then God showed up. He showed up by my next-door neighbor walking into our garage at 7:35. Mrs. Z, quietly and subtly, stood up from the couch we have in our hang-out corner of the garage and left the two of us together. My neighbor and I caught up briefly, discussed the issues everyone seemed to suddenly be facing gathering on every other Wednesday night, and came up with a concrete plan to help improve attendance at the next meeting. I had not planned on really sharing any of the Bible Study, but our discussion led to the Book of Jonah. I was able to teach the full story of the Prophet Jonah, which my neighbor really enjoyed, as his knowledge of Jonah was just that he was in the belly of a really big fish for three days. At nine o’clock, we finally wrapped up our discussion with prayer and we thanked each other; I thanked him for showing up, and he thanked me for the message and information I provided. After I cleaned up, I thanked God for showing up as well, for sending my next-door neighbor just as He sent Gabriel to Daniel. For me, this simple encounter, this simple action of just one of the original Bible Study members running over (despite being thirty minutes late) this helped keep the flame of purpose alive. The world and the devil are doing everything it can from allowing these men to finish the mission they committed themselves to, but God provided that spark to keep the fire of progress lit. We have two more meetings scheduled before we wrap up this initial journey of reading the Bible and move onto other studies. And I will keep y’all updated on those last two encounters.
God shows up when you may least expect Him. My Bible’s footnote really speaks to this truth: the closer you grow in your relationship to God and Jesus, the more they will send their angels to help you in times of need. If you do not feel this is true, maybe take an honest look at where God is in your life. Is He your number one priority? Or is having a relationship with Him just an after-thought where everything else in your life takes precedence? If the latter is true, and making God a priority is not your priority, why be surprised if God treats you the same way you treat Him? We want more and more from God, but God wants more and more OF us, not from us. He wants our devotion, attention, and adoration. The more we should want from God is more of His presence, His spirit, and His love. Want more? Give more. Give more-get more. Give more of yourself, get more of God. Get more of God, then give more to others. And when you give more, I hope that you’ll want even more.
Common Sense Reborn 