The Book of Daniel - Number Eight

The books of Daniel and Revelation are the same book, and the same prophetic lines that are represented in the book of Daniel are taken up in the book of Revelation. The Revelation of Jesus Christ, represents the final prophetic message that is unsealed just before the close of probation.

Truths which in the past have been correctly understood from the book of Revelation but have been sealed up by custom and tradition, are still truth, and today they are being unsealed again by the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and those truths are now revealing their perfect fulfillment.

Truths which in the past have been correctly understood from the book of Daniel but have been sealed up by custom and tradition, are still truth, and today they are being unsealed again by the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and those truths are now revealing their perfect fulfillment.

Daniel is simply the first of the two books that represent the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

Jehoiakim is a symbol of the empowerment of the first message in a reform movement. He is also a symbol of the covenant, for the change of a name prophetically identifies the beginning of a covenant relationship. The covenant relationship that God enters into with a people who had formerly not been God’s covenant people, begins at the empowerment of the first message.

The symbol of a name being changed representing a covenant relationship is established by Abram’s name being changed to Abraham, Sarai’s name to Sarah, Jacob’s name to Israel and Saul to Paul. There are other witnesses to the symbol, but in chapter one of Daniel, Daniel’s name is changed to Belteshazzar, and Hananiah’s name is changed to Shadrach, Mishael’s to Meshach, and Azariah’s to Abednego.

When the Lord enters into a covenant relationship with a people, he is simultaneously passing by a former covenant people. Jehoiakim represents the covenant people who are being passed by and Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah represent the covenant people that are then being chosen. When people enter into a covenant relationship, they are then tested as to whether they will uphold the terms of the covenant. The test is represented by the act of eating.

Adam and Eve failed the test with the act of eating, and when God first entered into a covenant with a chosen people, he began the relationship by testing them with manna. Ancient Israel ultimately failed that test, but in doing so they provided the first reference and first witness to the fact that a covenant test is not a singular test, but it is a testing process. By the tenth test, they were assigned to die in the wilderness over the next forty years. God then entered into covenant with Joshua and Caleb, thus providing witness that when the Lord enters into covenant with a chosen people, He is also passing by a former covenant people. At the end of ancient Israel, which was also the beginning of spiritual Israel, the last testing process for ancient Israel was the first testing process for spiritual Israel, and it was represented as the Bread of Heaven. It had been typified by the manna in the first covenant testing process.

In that testing process, which was both the first and the last testing process, Jesus identified the test of heavenly Bread when he said that those who are his covenant people must eat his flesh and drink his blood. He lost more disciples at that presentation than any other time in his ministry. That controversy in his ministry was the high point of the illustration of the covenant testing process, and Sister White comments at length upon the event in the Desire of Ages, where the title of the chapter is “The Crisis in Galilee”. The name Galilee means “a hinge,” or “a turning point,” and in the chapter, she outlines why the disciples turned away from him. They refused to apply his testimony of the requirement of eating his flesh and drinking his blood with the proper prophetic methodology. She identified that they held to customs and traditions of prophetic concepts that Satan had inculcated into ancient Israel’s biblical understanding. Those misunderstandings provided them with, what they thought, was an excuse to apply his words literally, instead of spiritually. She also points out that when those who “turned” away from Jesus (Galilee) who are identified in the sixth chapter of John (John 6:66), they walked with him no more forever.

With the first as with the last covenant testing process of ancient Israel, we find that when God enters into a covenant relationship with a chosen people, He is simultaneously passing by the former covenant people. We also find that he tests those people, not with a singular test, but with a process of testing. We also see that the testing process is represented by something that is to be eaten. We also find that the food represents the Word of God, and that the test involves a choice between two types of food to eat. Do we eat of every tree that God has said we can eat of, or do we eat from the tree which we have been forbidden to eat? We also find that the choice of what to eat includes the test of how we eat the food offered.

At the end of spiritual Israel, in the time of the Millerite movement, the first message was empowered on August 11, 1840. Jehoiakim there represents the Protestants that are then being carried into Babylon to become her daughters. They were confronted with a test when the angel of Revelation ten descended and had a little book open in his hand. Just as Jehoiakim rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar’s demands, and was thereafter led into captivity, the Protestants refused to eat the food in the angel’s hand, based upon the traditions and customs they brought with them out of the Dark Ages.

By the spring of 1844, the testing process had reached a “turning point” for Jehoiakim and the Protestants, and just as in the first testing process for spiritual Israel, they “turned” and walked no more with Jesus. In that history Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah represent the Millerites, who chose to eat the little book which was sweet in their mouth, but became bitter in their stomach.

If we include Adam and Eve, we have four classic witnesses that the test is represented by the act of eating. We have several prophetic witnesses, that all have the signature of the first and the last. The witness of the test of manna is a first witness, and the test of the Bread of Heaven is both a first test for spiritual Israel, while also being the last witness for ancient Israel. The test of the little book is both the first and the last. It is the end of spiritual Israel’s wandering as the church in the wilderness, and it is the first of those who were chosen to be the final denominated people of God. The Millerites were the beginning of God’s denominated people, which were to be identified as the true horn of Protestantism. There are several witnesses to the testing process that begins when the first message is empowered.

In those processes of testing there arrives a “turning point”, where nearly all of the disciples turn away. At Joshua and Caleb’s testimony all Israel turned away and sought to return to Egypt. At the church in Galilee, the majority of disciples turned away. Because Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the “turning point” that is represented at the end of the testing process is also illustrated at the beginning of the testing process. When the manna was first provided for ancient Israel, there were those that immediately turned away from the instructions. At Christ’s baptism He turned away and went into the wilderness. Sister White uses the symbol of a turning point in a very informative fashion.

When the manna was first given to ancient Israel, the light for that history was given. At Christ’s baptism the light for that history was given. On August 11, 1840 the light for that history was given. Each of those turning points mark the beginning of a testing process that ultimately ends at another turning point, when the former covenant people turn away and walk with Christ no more.

Because these various testing processes represent both a testing process for the former covenant people and also for the new covenant people, there are two conclusions of the testing process. The conclusion of the testing process, and therefore the final turning point for the Protestants in the Millerite history, was the spring of 1844. The conclusion of the testing process (in the Fall of 1844), or turning point for the Millerites themselves, came after the turning point for the former people of God.

In the history of Christ, the testing process is identified by his twice cleansing the temple, once at the beginning of his ministry, and then again at the ending of his ministry.

The testing process of the two temple cleansings of Christ is aligned with Malachi chapter three, in the writings of the Spirit of Prophecy.

The cleansing of God’s people represents the testing process that is repeatedly identified with several lines of prophecy. Every reference, beginning with Adam and Eve unto the Millerite history represents the cleansing of the one hundred and forty-four thousand.

The cleansing process of the one hundred and forty-four thousand is the first reference in the book of Daniel, which is the first book of the two books that together represent the Revelation of Jesus Christ that is unsealed just before human probation closes. The cleansing process of the one hundred and forty-four thousand is also represented as the sealing process. When the first message of the cleansing, sealing process of the one hundred and forty-four thousand began on September 11, 2001, it was a turning point for the church and for the world. In Revelation chapter eighteen, the angel that lightens the world with his glory then arrived. Yet in Revelation eighteen, the angel is not represented as having anything to eat in his hand—but it is there. The little book is there. It can be easily recognized by those who choose to eat the methodology represented as “line upon line,” by the prophet Isaiah.

By laying “line upon line” we understand that when Christ descended on September 11, 2001, he also had a “little book” which had been represented as “manna”, the “bread of heaven” and the “little book”. But on September 11, 2001, the former chosen people, represented by Jehoiakim, chose to hold to the customs and traditions of Adventism, and then began their march into the captivity of Babylon which will be complete at the Sunday law.

When the “great buildings” of “New York” were “thrown down by the turning and overturning of God’s power,” on September 11, 2001, the light of the angel of Revelation eighteen filled the whole earth, for a turning point had come in the history of the earth beast of Revelation thirteen.

When the light of the angel of Revelation eighteen arrived on September 11, 2001, those who received the light progressed spiritually and those who rejected the light declined spiritually, and began their rebellious journey onward to their final turning point of the Sunday law, where they forever make shipwreck of their profession as the messengers of the third angel. Those in Galilee that turned away and walked no more with Christ in John 6:66, were turning away from the light that had first arrived at his baptism, which is where the first message of that testing history was empowered. In Daniel chapter one, two classes of worshippers are illustrated in the history when the first message is empowered. Jehoiakim represents those that make shipwreck of faith, and Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah represent the faithful.

Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were the children of Judah. They were made into eunuchs, thus representing the final generation of Adventism. Nebuchadnezzar, as many ancient kings, had the four Judean youths castrated, to remove any concerns the king might have when they served as slaves and interacted with the king’s wives and concubines.

Symbolically it represents the final generation of Adventism, for there would be no more line of Judah after these four. Four is a symbol of worldwide, and thus represents the final generation of Seventh-day Adventists around the world who recognize September 11, 2001, as a fulfillment of God’s prophetic Word.

Those Seventh-day Adventists are the subject of God’s prophetic Word, for they are those called to be the one hundred and forty-four thousand. Yet their prophetic heritage began with the rebellion of their fathers, in 1863. That initial rebellion is almost impossible to recognize for it has been covered by the traditions and customs of four generations of escalating rebellion. Though difficult to recognize it must be seen and acknowledged, as Daniel ultimately does in Daniel chapter nine. He did so by recognizing the truth located in God’s prophetic Word.

The rebellion that Daniel and the three worthies directly descended from, was their father’s refusal to remain separate from the heathen influences that surrounded them. In 1863, Laodicean Adventism returned to the biblical methodology of apostate Protestantism and Catholicism, to uphold their rejection of Miller’s identification of the “seven times” of Leviticus twenty-six. That rebellion for Daniel and the three worthies was represented by king Hezekiah.

King Hezekiah pled with the Lord not to die, and his prayer was answered when the Lord gave him another 15 years. In doing so, he then fathered Manasseh, one of the most wicked kings of Judah, but also the king that marks the beginning of the progressive seven-step conquering and enslavement of Judah. In 1856, the True Witness came to knock on Laodicean Adventism’s door, but they chose to live and not die to self. By 1863, they had rebuilt “Jericho” and started the escalating rebellion that ultimately prevented them from recognizing September 11, 2001 as the beginning of their three-step journey into the slavery of spiritual Babylon that ends at the Sunday law.

For king Hezekiah, 1863 came when his prayer to live was granted. The Lord provided a sign that his prayer had been accepted. God confirmed the prayer by moving the sun, and the Babylonians saw the activity of God in the heavens, though they knew not what it meant. The Babylonians then came to Jerusalem to find out about the God who had the power to control the sun. Instead of glorifying the God of Heaven, king Hezekiah, instead of dying to self, chose to glorify his temple and city instead of the God who had chosen to place His name in that temple and city.

That rebellion brought the prophecy that children from his blood line would become slaves and eunuchs in Babylon. Those children were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, and represent the spiritual final generation of those Seventh-day Adventists that recognize September 11, 2001 as a turning point in the history of the nations of the world and of the church, when the light is given that is to test and seal the one hundred and forty-four thousand.

The next verse says:

What would have been the result if king Hezekiah had accepted the Lord’s will, and simply got his house in order and died? He was given fifteen extra years, and three years later wicked Manasseh was born. What would have happened in 1856, if Adventism had accepted the transition from Philadelphia unto Laodicea and got their house in order and left the foundational truths of William Miller intact? I suppose we will never know the answer to that question, but what we do know is that “Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank.”

We will continue Daniel chapter one in the next article.