TEXT: DANIEL 8:1-12
Key Verse: Daniel 8:12 And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practiced, and prospered.
On March 21, 1969, Time magazine of the United States conducted an investigative report that concluded that 1,220 out of the country’s 1,750 dailies had columns running forecasts about the unknown tomorrow. The stargazers failed miserably with their prophecies the same way a religious group has been forced to revise its predictions about the date of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ severally.
On the other hand, the true prophets of God have always proclaimed unfailing prophecies. Daniel was one such men of God. Two years after the Lord revealed the prophecy of the four kingdoms that would shape the world up to the rapture and the millennial rule and beyond, Daniel received more visions, this time of both long and short scopes. God, using domestic animals to represent the kingdoms unlike the wild creatures of the previous chapter, revealed that world powers would rise and fall. Daniel prophesied that “a notable… horn” would emerge.
Historians have identified this “horn” as Alexander the Great of the Greek Empire, who, as predicted died prematurely in 323 BC: “the great horn was broken.” The prophecy was made about 300 years earlier. Daniel also predicted that after Alexander’s death, the Greek Empire would collapse and give birth to four new ones. And so it happened.
Only He who knows the future reveals it to His genuine servants and to sincere seekers of the truth. Man is needlessly anxious about the years ahead, turning to idols and charlatans to untie the knot about the unknown. He will rope himself into more snares if he does not run to the God who, thousands of years ago, predicted what we are witnessing today: “the time of the end… shall be a time of trouble… many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased”.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Do not seek to know the future without first knowing its Owner.
The Bible IN ONE YEAR: GENESIS 21 – 23
Yesha’yah[u] (Hebrew name of Isaiah) in ancient Hebrew script, followed by the letters N-V-Y, which are the three first letters of the word for prophet (navi, spelled nun-beit-yod-aleph).
