The Ram and the Goat

Order of Service

• Hymn — O God Beyond All Praising
• Call to Worship — Psalm 138
• Hymn — O God Beyond All Praising
• Prayer of Invocation
• Confession of Faith (Westminster Shorter Catechism)
• Scripture Reading — Luke 5:17-26
• Hymn — In Christ Alone
• Pastoral Prayer
• Offering
• Hymn — Be Still My Soul
• Sermon
• Hymn — Day by Day and with Each Passing Moment
• Benediction — Numbers 6:24-26
• Doxology

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Sermon Title: The Ram and the Goat

Scripture: Daniel 8

I. Who Is Being Depicted in the Vision?

• A. The ram with two horns represents the Medo-Persian Empire (Daniel 8:20), with the higher horn representing Persia under Cyrus, who had already subjugated the Medes.

  1. Daniel receives this vision in the third year of King Belshazzar — the twilight of Babylon's reign.
  2. Daniel is transported in the vision to Susa, the chief capital of Persia, beside the Ulai Canal.

• B. The goat represents Greece (Daniel 8:21), and the great horn between its eyes is Alexander the Great.

  1. Alexander swiftly conquered more territory than any empire before him, but died of a fever at age 32.
  2. After his death, his kingdom was divided among four generals: Cassander (Macedonia), Lysimachus (Thrace), the Seleucids (Syria), and Ptolemy (Egypt).

• C. The little horn arising from one of the four (Daniel 8:9) is Antiochus IV Epiphanes, emerging from the Seleucid Empire in Syria.

• D. The host of heaven and the stars represent the saints (Daniel 8:24), echoing God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 15 and the language of Daniel 12:3.

  1. Angels share a vested interest in the welfare of the saints; the angel's cry of "How long?" in verse 13 echoes the anguish of the Psalter's persecuted saints.
  2. Scripture affirms that angels rejoice over the salvation of sinners and praised God at the birth of Christ (Luke 2).

• E. The prince of the host and prince of princes (Daniel 8:11, 25) is God himself; Antiochus in raging against the saints effectively raises his fist against heaven.

II. What Is Being Depicted in the Vision?

• A. The vision depicts Antiochus IV's sack of Jerusalem and his systematic attempt to annihilate the Hebrew religion.

  1. Antiochus called himself "Epiphanes" (God manifest), identifying himself with Olympian Zeus; his enemies called him "Epimanes" (madman).
  2. He killed the high priest Onias III in 170 BC and slaughtered tens of thousands of Jews (2 Maccabees reports 80,000 in three days).
  3. He abolished temple sacrifices, prohibited the Sabbath and circumcision on pain of death, and required pagan sacrifice in every town in Judea.
  4. On December 25, 167 BC, the first heathen sacrifice to Zeus was offered on a pagan altar erected over the great altar of burnt offering in Jerusalem.

• B. Antiochus himself died not in battle but by illness in 164 BC, fulfilling Daniel 8:25 — "he shall be broken, but by no human hand."

• C. His atrocities inspired the Maccabean revolt under Judah Maccabee, leading to the rededication of the temple in 164 BC — celebrated today as Hanukkah.

• D. The 2,300 evenings and mornings (Daniel 8:14) mark an appointed end to the suffering of God's people.

  1. One interpretation: evening and morning refer to the daily sacrifices commanded in Exodus 29 and Numbers 28, giving 1,150 days (roughly 168–165 BC).
  2. A preferred interpretation: following the Hebrew reckoning of days (evening and morning, as in Genesis 1), this equals approximately six years and four months (171–165 BC).
  3. Either way, God assures Daniel that the suffering has an expiration date. Calvin: the prediction kept the pious from sliding into despair and became a solace amid their woes.

• E. Daniel receives this vision while in exile, longing for the temple and land to be restored — yet he sees restoration occurring in the context of defilement and slaughter, a sobering and painful revelation.

• F. The church, like Washington's Continental Army, loses many battles but cannot be ultimately destroyed; as long as Christ holds his people together, the enemy cannot win the war.

  1. 2 Corinthians 4:8-9: "Afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed."
  2. The enemy always overreaches — they crucified the Lord of glory — and in doing so secured their own defeat.

III. Why Does This Take Place?

• A. The transgression referenced in Daniel 8:12 and 23 points primarily to the covenant law-breaking of God's own people, Israel.

  1. The Hebrew word for transgression in the Old Testament most often refers to covenant people breaking the law given through Moses.
  2. Scripture consistently connects foreign overthrow of the land and temple to Israel's abandonment of Yahweh and pursuit of idols.

• B. Hellenism had infiltrated Jewish worship before Antiochus's atrocities; a Jewish priest named Menelaus robbed the temple and collaborated with Antiochus to kill the high priest Onias and Hellenize Jewish worship.

• C. The Old Testament ends with Malachi's indictment of a corrupt priesthood — the temple restored and the people in the land, yet God declares in Malachi 1:10 that he takes no pleasure in their offerings.

• D. Jesus, the true high priest, fulfills and resolves what Antiochus and corrupt priests could only defile.

  1. One of Christ's first acts was cleansing the temple (John 2); his triumphal entry likewise culminated in cleansing it again.
  2. At his death, the temple curtain was torn from top to bottom, opening access to God for all who come through the blood of Christ.
  3. Worship is no longer confined to Mount Gerizim or Mount Zion; wherever two or three gather in Christ's name, there is the glorious land.

• E. The greatest beast is not an external empire but the beast of sin within — the lesson Israel had to learn again and again through the cycle of Judges.

  1. John Owen: "Sin aims always at the utmost. Every unclean thought or glance would be adultery if it could. Every covetous desire would be oppression. Every thought of unbelief would be atheism."
  2. What Israel needed was not merely a Maccabean revolt but transgression dealt with once and for all.

• F. The only way to outlast the beasts from without is to have the beast of sin slain by Christ at the cross.

  1. When sin — the greatest beast — is conquered by faith in Christ, all other trials become, by comparison, manageable.
  2. Psalm 118: "The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?"
  3. Call to self-examination: are you watching for the beast from without while a beast rages within? Bring your sin to the foot of the cross and have it dealt with through faith in Christ.