Introduction to
the Prophecies
of Daniel
To best understand The Book of Daniel we must briefly vault ahead to the very last chapter. It is there we discover God sent an angel to Daniel telling him that the words of his prophecies would not be fully understood for many, many hundreds of years. Not until the last hours of history, when travel and knowledge (implying communication and technology also) would be greatly increased. The Book of Daniel was supernaturally kept on the shelf to enhance the understanding of end-times believers who would desperately need the wisdom it would provide in the last days when deception and seducing spirits would become worse and worse, even in the Church. An angel informs Daniel that the book's meaning would be "sealed up" until just the right time when its meaning and impact would be revealed for anyone to understand and adhere to if they had a mind and spirit to do so. Daniel was told.
“But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro [travel far and wide], and knowledge shall be increased. …
“And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?
And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.
Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.” Dan.12:4, 8-10
Today, the seal on the Book of Daniel has been broken and the book lies open to our understanding, ready to be read by any inquiring soul on earth. The Philadelphia Faith’s study ought to prove that the meaning of Daniel and its understanding is clear and especially relevant in these tumultuous end-times. Who can deny that travel and knowledge are increased in this day and age - even beyond the wildest imaginings of the greatest Orwellian or Apocryphal visionaries .
Suddenly, the world has been transformed into a global village by jets, radio waves, televisions, telephone wires, televisions, computers, satellites and cell phones and the internet. People hop from continent to continent like fleas jumping on dogs back. The information superhighway goes a million megabytes a minute feeding people more information in one day than they can hope to digest in a whole year. Don't let anyone tell you Daniel is not to be understood and that this is not the day for that understanding.
Daniel is Packed with Knowledge
and Travels Briskly Thru History
It is fitting that Daniel would only be understood when travel and knowledge increased, because Daniel is jam-packed with spiritual knowledge, and travels the entire course of the history of western civilization. It entails a vast journey around the world and through the ages. If you are not already excited about the Book of Daniel, dear saint, you should be. Daniel is one of the most remarkable, incredible and powerful books of the entire Bible and one of the greatest signs of the nearness of the return of Jesus Christ to earth.
- Daniel foretold the history of the world.
- Prophesies the exact career of the antichrist.
- Tells us the precise beginning, middle and end of the Tribulation.
- Tears off the benevolent disguise of the antichrist spirit and exposes the Beast.
- It comforts the believer and reassures the people of the earth that God has everything under control.
- And, proves that no ruler, government or empire has ever had, the slightest bit of power without God's OK.
Daniel reveals all that - and more!
Besides having one of the most perfect prayers of repentance nestled in its midst, Daniel has, perhaps, the single greatest, most encompassing, prophecy in all The Holy Scriptures. In just four dramatic verses (9:24-27) believers are told:
- The time of Jewish captivity.
- The exact time of the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of Nehemiah’s second Temple.
- Six hundred years in advance, tells us, to the day, the exact time of Christ’s first coming, and his crucifixion.
- Tells the subsequent destruction of Herod’s temple.
- Alludes to the age of grace and salvation.
- Pinpoints the exact start of the Tribulation and what triggers its beginning.
- Speaks of the tenure of the Antichrist.
- Tells of the desolation which will follow in his wake.
- Heralds the ultimate salvation of God’s saints.
- And, promises six glorious results of his overall plan of redemption.
- To finish the transgression.
- To make an end of sins.
- To make reconciliation for iniquity.
- To bring in everlasting righteousness.
- To seal up the vision and the prophecy.
- And to anoint the Most Holy.
(See: The Greatest Prophecy
of the Entire Bible #10 in this series.)
It should be apparent by the above list that the purpose of God in Daniel’s writings is to arrest and eradicate wickedness in and for His believers, as well as expose what wickedness and evil really is as embodied and universally expressed in the spirit of antichrist. An all inclusive study of Daniel can serve to alert believers to the craven nature of the antichrist spirit which permeates the entire world and just about everything in it and cautioning people to stand aloof from its corrupting influence. An understanding of Daniel can and should deliver us from any lingering personal hopes that we may still be carrying for the world and its politics as a form or aid of salvation. In order to elevate of such devastating misunderstanding of such a vast subject as the extent of antichrist evils it is easier if Daniel is divided into two equal sections. The first half comprises the predicaments in which Daniel and his fellow believers found themselves embroiled. A list of summary topics by chapter helps our comprehension.
- Chapter one reveals Daniel's daily spiritual life in the midst of an antichrist world.
- Chapter two depicts the condition of the Antichrist Empire through history.
- Chapter three warns believers about Antichrist promotion of idolatry.
- Chapter four proves that no king or leader rules except by God’s consent/ we should have no faith in man’s government.
- Chapter five establishes the ultimate judgment of all who oppose God's will and live vainly as if life’s pleasures on this earth can go on unimpeded forever.
- And, chapter six teaches us that God’s people will be put in hopeless situations, but he will save them out of all their distresses if they are faithful to acknowledge God in all their ways.
In summary:
Daniel Is About Individual Faith vs. the Antichrist Spirit
The first half (six chapters) of Daniel concerns the end-times believer's personal struggle with the antichrist spirit with chapter one setting the groundwork of required faith for the entire book and the following five chapters detailing some of the spiritual courage and faithful qualities needed for Christian battles of the end-times.
The second half (last six chapters) is about the battle between Christ’s Kingdom and the Kingdom of Antichrist, the most fundamental of all conflicts of creation: the opposing forces of Christ versus Antichrist, good vs. evil. Each abides in a kingdom, set up and endorsed by their respective father, one is God; the other, the Devil. Though it is not readily apparent when seen through the eyes of this world, the second half of Daniel shows how both kingdoms are in open competition with one another. We see how both kingdoms vie for the souls of men. We are transported by the Prophetic Word into the spiritual realm. The prophecies and allegorical stories take us soaring above carnal matter to show the spiritual truth about the great empires of history and the wicked truth of man's most revered ideas about government. We comprehend how no ideology, form of government, or ruler can gain power except through the express permission and allowance of God. Faith in politics is dashed on the rocks of vanity, lifted in airy submission to a higher reality, that of God’s sublime power and all-comprehending dominion. The prophecies of Daniel tear off the mask of the antichrist, shed the powerful image of hope and benevolence, and reveal a cruel thing; a hideous thing, a thing our spirits have long suspected. We see the ruthless beast-spirit and man’s complicity in opposition to Christ – the Beast snarls, oppresses, devours, like a lion roaming around seeking to devour whomsoever it may.” Daniel is given visions, dreams, words, prayers, and prophecies. In these, God relays to us His opinions and feelings – His truth - which He poses to us so we can properly incorporate them into our faith. The Persian Empire, Roman Empire, Alexander The Great, Napoleon, The British Empire, the Ottoman Turks, Islam, The United States: all held in awe by mankind, are forecast in the prophecies of Daniel and shown to be nothing but blurbs, measurable fulfillments, mere sequential epochs in the Most High’s overall plan of redemption. The great empires and leaders are on exhibit in their niche, nothing more than momentary 
flashes of satanic outburst along God’s prophetically lighted thoroughfare of eternity. The twelve chapters of Daniel, inspired completely by the Holy Spirit, as the infallible, immutable, perfect Word of God, reveal this ever frustrated antichrist spirit. What cannot be discovered by sight, handled or touched, not tasted, nor discerned by any human faculty of the senses; is revealed for our spiritual purview by the Holy Spirit's words brought to life by the supernatural experiences of God’s humble servant, Daniel. If God had not painted the pictures and said in concise words what He teaches in the second half of Daniel, we would not be able to believe it, so unbelievable it all is to the human mind. Things held dear and sacred to us all, are toppled by the revelations presented in Daniel. Daniel is vital to us because it delivers us from the scores of natural presumptions we acquire during the course of life’s experience in this unfaithful world which we live.
It is a shame that the Book of Daniel is so often overlooked. Making a spiritual effort to understand and keep the words of Daniel will not only contribute to making us stronger more faithful stewards of the Good News, it will also provide us with a specially forged shield of protection to be used against the ever increasing onslaught of the spirit of this world. Daniel's visions and prophesies can be put to use by the spirit in these last hours to deal a devastating blow to antichrist powers and principalities that contend directly with the Holy Spirit for the control of that great spiritual battleground – man’s mind. That battleground includes the influence it will have on our spirit. When clearly understood and received by divine faith, when Daniel is believed through and through so that the saint can walk according to its lessons and its reality, not wavering with doubt, then the saint will have reaped the benefit which God has intended to bestow through the prophecies of Daniel. Its prophetic content becomes not only a shield, but a tool which can hone the sword of the spirit to razor-thin sharpness. The Bible says the word of God is the sword of the spirit. Daniel’s words, it can be said, fashion that Sword of the Spirit bright and hard as diamond. It is able to slice away the most beautiful and impressive appearances of the Antichrist and its promises, so as to expose the truth; an ugly, beastly spirit which lies beneath the enticing golden glow of devilishly angelic light, viper-like, weird and very deadly, poisoning the whole earth.
Daniel is not only a defensive shield and offensive weapon against this weird antichrist world, but it is also a remedy for the innate, natural love of this world which every human has when he is born, and keeps till he dies, unless delivered of it by God. Daniel is a tool for God’s deliverance. It is a portion of the ‘children’s bread’. Receiving and believing the words of the prophetic book of Daniel is one of God's end-time cures, an inoculation against the poison of the vanity of this passing world. As some people are born with a chronic disease, this is a chronic, disease common to us all. Remember, dear saints, the book of James has said, He who is the friend of the world is the enemy of God. Daniel is an antidote against the subtle seduction and the craftiness of those antichrist angels of light who, with more and more frequency are being unleashed on the world to swarm mankind and keep them in the clutches of the faith of this world. These forces of antichrist and the world are storming even the Church and using lukewarm Christianity, ecumenism and man's blasphemous ideas of love to try and deceive even the truly born-again believer. Therefore, ThePhiladelphiaFaith.org, as by this perusal of the Book of Daniel, is dedicated to prophecies’ essential teachings - Christ is coming back soon! Understanding Daniel proves this is true; and it is given to the end-times saints as a secret-weapon of understanding to help defeat the lies of Satan and promote faith for the return of Christ.
The earth has been deluged by apocryphal things, everything from earthquakes and famines to world wars, we are now a global village precipitated by the rise of knowledge and technology so that people can range far and wide. The struggle between man and machine, light and dark, evil versus good now rages. It hardly needs mention, the Sci-Fi novels and movies of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, George Orwell, or the list of apocryphal celluloid pronouncements from Hollywood of evil and gloom, Hal the Computer, or this or that kind of strangeness from Hell – the future disasters and destruction of the world has been written on, filmed and sung about with rising intensity for the last two hundred years. The list reaches to the moon. The money made fills the Grand Canyon. The confusion caused - incalculable.