Sermon Snippets: Daniel

In the early days of Facebook, there were all kinds of games and apps and quizzes you could take while you were wasting your time on that social network. Wait a second, who am I kidding, there are still plenty of those things out there, but I remember taking a survey via Facebook and based on my responses, it compared me to a Bible character. Interesting right?  Who wouldn't want to be compared to a saint from the Bible?
When I finished that survey, I was rated similarly to Daniel.

I think there were a lot of positive attributes that were listed that this quiz determined were true of me and which made me like him. But my admirable character qualities are not why I bring this up. I bring this up because for our next sermon series, we will be going through the book of Daniel.

And for all his positive personality traits and his fine example, Daniel should not be our focus in the book of Daniel.  When properly read and interpreted, the book of Daniel shines a bright spotlight on God. Specifically, it directs our attention on God's sovereignty over people, world empires, and all of history. It points us ahead in the biblical account to the coming Son of Man and anticipates the day still-future when

"the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed...it will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever." - Dan. 2:44

This is a beautiful part of Scripture that encourages us in our despair, motivates us to faithfulness, and spurs us on with hope for the future. Even so come quickly Lord Jesus!