Daniel #16 From United Rome to Divided Rome

Skeptics have longed attacked the inspired Book of Daniel: particularly the prophetic accuracy revealed in it. Thus, they falsely claim it is not prophecy of future events at all, but history of past events. It was not Daniel that wrote this book (they claim), but someone much later (about 160 BC) that wrote about the empires of Babylon, Medo/Persia, and Greece. The most troubling part of the Book of Daniel for skeptics is the prophetic accuracy that is revealed in it. Their goal is to remove the prophetic portions of Daniel in which the all-knowing, sovereign God gives Daniel knowledge of what He has planned for the future.

But skeptics must also take into account that there are prophecies in the Book of Daniel that far exceed the time of the Maccabean war (160 BC) and prophesy about the great Roman Empire, the division of the Roman Empire into ten kingdoms, the rise of a “little horn” at the time of these ten kingdoms (papal antichrist), the advent and ministry of Jesus Christ (even to the exact year that He began His ministry), and the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans (70 AD). Jesus even mentions that Daniel prophesied the desolation that would befall Jerusalem about 600 years before Jerusalem was destroyed (Matthew 24:15-16; Daniel 9:26-27).

Thus, the skeptics fail to remove the prophetic accuracy of the Book of Daniel, and God glorifies His omniscience and sovereignty over all history. The fulfillment of prophecy in history confirms our faith in all of Scripture. The main points for the sermon today are: (1) The Unity of the Roman Empire; (2) The Division of the Roman Empire; (3) The Application to Us.