Visions of the End; Daniel's Perfect Picture of God's Master Plan

Dedication

Four times I have been chosen to serve as a pastor,

in four very different churches.

It is to those congregations that I dedicate this work.

To my friends, the wonderful people of

First Assembly of God, Deming, New Mexico

Central Assembly of God, Las Cruces, New Mexico

Abundant Life Assembly of God, Bryan, Texas

Lovelady Assembly of God, Lovelady, Texas

Contents

Dedication

Contents

Preface

1 The Visionary

2 The Vision of the Statue and the Stone

3 The Vision of the Beasts and the Throne

4 The Vision of the Ram and the Goat

5 The Vision of the Seventy Weeks

6 The Vision of the Warring Kings

7 The Time of the End

Dear Reader

About The Author

Preface

There is always a curiosity about the things to come. From the first prophecy that God ever made until now, the perpetual question is When? And with each new generation, there seems to be a renewed interest in eschatology, that study of Scripture that focuses specifically on the prophetic word concerning the last things. This is as it should be, for every generation should discover for itself the expectation and the anticipation of the return of Jesus Christ, the fulfillment of all things, and the end of days, which is really the beginning of eternity future!

As with all studies of Biblical Prophecy, this is a work in progress. Events continue to unfold which shed more and more light on the subject. I am not an expert in Biblical languages, such as the Aramaic and Greek in which Daniel was originally written. Neither am I an expert in Middle East history and politics. Nor am I an expert in Biblical Apocalyptic literature. I am merely a pastor and constant student of the Bible in general and Bible Prophecy in particular. This is my diligent attempt to present an explanation that will help give understanding to students of the same.

I have studied Daniel in multiple translations of the Bible. In Visions of the End, I have quoted primarily the New Living Translation. I have prayerfully drawn my own conclusions from Scripture, and for comparison read from such authors as Finis Jennings Dake, John G. Hall, Stanley Horton, Grant Jeffrey, Clarence Larkin, Henry Morris, J. Dwight Pentecost, John Phillips, and Perry Stone.

I would like to thank Bridgett Henson of Empowered Publications for finding in this work something worth publishing. I would like to thank those church members who read and studied this material with me, and who allowed me to teach it first to them. I would like to thank those friends of mine who read this manuscript and responded to its contents. I would like to thank my parents for a wonderful Christian heritage and an education in the word. And I would like to thank my amazing wife April, who read this manuscript aloud with me, offered her insights and suggestions, asked a ton of questions, and loves me far more than I deserve or understand.

Biblical prophecy is some of the most exiting reading available to mankind, especially in light of the fact that we are living in the last days. We may very well see the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecies in our lifetime. Daniel’s visions centered on two basic concepts—the rise of the Antichrist, and the triumph of the Real Christ, the Son of the Living God. According to the Apostle John, the spirit of Antichrist is already at work in our world today, and has been since the beginning of time. There have been many antichrist personalities through the centuries, but the man who will embody lawlessness and sin, the man who will be the final Antichrist could be living and breathing on planet earth today. If he is, then the return of Jesus Christ and our Blessed Hope, the Rapture of the Church, cannot be far away!

Even so, come Lord Jesus!

Rev. Casey L. Stafford

Lovelady, Texas

2016

1 The Visionary

Old Testament Revelator

He was born at the height of revival during righteous King Josiah’s reign, to a family of royal heritage in the city of Jerusalem. On the eighth day after his birth, he was circumcised according to the covenant of Abraham with the Most High God and given the name Daniel, which means God is my judge. His kinsmen and childhood playmates were the princes of Judah, and he was raised in the fading splendor of a dying kingdom, schooled in the ways of the Hebrew court and groomed for leadership on the council of one of his cousins when the time came.

It was a brief period of glory in Israel, sandwiched between the horrors of Manasseh’s long rule and the quick succession of unrighteous kings who would lead Judah to its destruction as a nation. Seventy-five years before Daniel’s birth, darkness had descended over the land as the boy king Manasseh began to lead the nation in doing what was evil before the Lord. The prophets of God were violently killed, like Isaiah who was placed in a hollow log and sawn in two. The nation turned again to the detestable practices of the pagan nations, and Manasseh rebuilt the pagan shrines demolished by his father Hezekiah a generation before.

Under King Manasseh’s direct command, altars to Baal were rebuilt, and the vile Asherah poles were erected in high places. Manasseh built pagan altars in the Temple of the Lord, worshiping all the gods of the heavens and earth there. On the altar to the Canaanite god Molech, Manasseh sacrificed one of his own infant sons. He practiced sorcery and divination, consulted with mediums and psychics, and went so far as to put an Asherah pole in the Holy Sanctuary of the Temple of God. The Bible says of Manasseh that he led the Israelites in doing more evil than the pagan nations God had destroyed when Israel took possession of their land.

Passing judgment on Manasseh’s evil ways, God raised up the Assyrians against Judah. They took Manasseh captive and led him in chains to Babylon. Imprisoned there, Manasseh began to cry out to the Lord, and the Chronicles record that when Manasseh repented and recognized the Lord as God, he was set free and returned to Jerusalem in his old age. He rebuilt the outer wall of the City of David. He removed the foreign gods from the high places and tore down the altars and the Asherah pole he had placed in the Temple. He restored the altar of the Lord and offered on it the sacrifices for his sins and the sins of the people. But the people continued in their idolatrous and sinful ways.

Manasseh died after a long and fruitless reign and was succeeded by his son Amon, who followed in the earlier footsteps of his father. He ignored the religious reforms of Manasseh and returned to the idols. In the second year of his reign, his own officials assassinated him. The assassins were brought to swift justice, and the people of Israel took his eight-year-old son Josiah and made him king in his father’s place.

Under the tutelage of righteous and holy men, Josiah sought the Lord, and when he was twenty years old, he began a nation-wide campaign against the idols and their altars built by his father and grandfather. He killed the idolatrous priests, burned their altars, and raised money for the restoration of the temple under the High Priest Hilkiah. It was Hilkiah who found the forgotten Book of the Law of the Lord that had been given to Moses. When it was read before the king, and Josiah realized how far his people had fallen away from the commands of the Lord, he summoned all the leaders of the land to Jerusalem to hear what they had all forgotten.

In the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign, the king called all of Israel to celebrate the Passover Feast. The Bible says that since the time of Samuel, there had been no national celebration like the one held by Josiah, and that he celebrated the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread as no other king had ever done. It was in this climate of Spiritual revival and fervor for the one true God that Daniel was born.

The Death of Kings

After a thirty-one-year reign, Josiah led his army into battle against Egypt and was killed. His son Jehoahaz reigned in his place, but Pharaoh Neco imprisoned Jehoahaz after only three months and placed his brother Jehoiakim on the throne. Jehoiakim followed in the idolatrous ways of Manasseh and did everything that was evil in the sight of the Lord. In the meantime, a great power was rising to the east, and in 605 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem. After a short siege, Jehoiakim surrendered and placed himself as a tributary to the king of Babylon. As part of this agreement, Nebuchadnezzar took some of the sacred objects from the Temple and placed them in the temple of his Babylonian gods.