October 2, 2023 Daniel 7:9-14 Sermon Pastors Conference
Jonathan P. Boehne
Fall Pastors Conference CID
Daniel 7:9-14
October 2, 2023
“The Church Forever, Forever and Ever!”
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
This is one nasty, vicious horn in Daniel 7. An animal horn that has eyes and a mouth and speaks pompous, prideful, hateful things. An ugly thing to picture. Even when Daniel is seeing the Ancient of Days, the Father, on His throne with ten thousand times ten thousand of angels standing before Him, he still can’t help looking at this nasty, pompous animal horn. Daniel’s attention is drawn away from the Father to hear this horn still spewing out his venom. That horn is the Antichrist, the man of lawlessness.
In the rest of Daniel 7, we learn more about this pompous horn. He makes war against the saints (v. 21). He fights Christians. He speaks words against the Most High (v. 25). He blasphemes. He wears out the saints of the Most High (v. 25). He’s relentless against us Christians. And he thinks to change the times and the law (v. 25). He thinks to tear people away from God’s Divine Service and His Divine Law.
You see what’s going on here. This pompous, Satanic horn antichrist is wearing us down and making war against the saints, against our kingdom! He diverts our attention away from the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man. We’re tempted to lose heart. It was true for the exiles in Babylon who wept by the waters. It was true for Daniel and the three young men. And it’s true for us today.
But what becomes of the horn? He’s destroyed and burned with fire (v. 11). He’s consumed! All dominion is given to the “one like a son of man” coming in the clouds, to Jesus Christ. And His kingdom, His Church, is one that shall never be destroyed. And v. 18, “The saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess it forever, forever and ever!”
That’s the theme of Daniel 7 – “The Church forever, forever and ever!” And we’ll take it to heart right now even as that pompous horn bloviates all around us in the world and even within the Church.
Now all of this comes out of a vision that Daniel receives during Belshazzar’s reign. Daniel, along with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, have all learned that these kings are nothing to the King of kings. Their kingdoms are nothing to the Church. Nebuchadnezzar with his threats and fiery furnace was nothing. Belshazzar partying with the vessels of the Temple saw the handwriting on the wall—he was nothing too. Darius and his lions den was nothing. They were all nothing great in God’s overarching vision.
So Daniel sees that vision of God in chapter 7. The vision of four beasts rising out of the sea. The lion with eagles’ wings. That’s the kingdom of Babylon. Then a beast like a bear devouring much flesh. The kingdom of the Medes and Persians. Then the third beast, a leopard with wings, the kingdom of the Greeks. And finally, the fourth and greatest beast, the Roman Empire. This last beast has ten horns. But one horn comes up out of the ten and this is that nasty, vicious, pompous horn with eyes and a mouth. The antichrist. All of the beasts are destroyed but this horn keeps remaining, shouting his blasphemy against the Most High and wearing out the saints.
That horn, that voice of Satan in our ears, is wearing out a lot of pastors. So the statistics say and so we’ve all witnessed. Pastors who can’t bear to fight anymore because that pompous horn has turned their eyes and hearts away from the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man on the throne. That horn, with a voice like a dragon in Revelation 13, is wearing out the saints of our congregations. He lures the saints away, deceiving them and convincing them to worship the other beast of Revelation 13, to worship the world and everything in it. The horn speaks and so many of our people listen to his sermons instead of ours. They go to worship on Sunday morning at the beast’s altars. At the altar of sex. The altar of shopping and same day shipping. The altar of sports. The altar of screens. The altar of sham spirituality of every stripe. That horn is a nasty, pompous mouth. I hate him. He’s wearing me out. And maybe you too.
When I was a kid on the dairy farm, one of our jobs was dehorning the calves. You generally don’t want dairy cows having horns. It causes numerous problems. The same basic principle as a cat having claws in the house. It causes problems. So you dehorn them. When the horn is just starting to grow you take this tool with a glowing hot ring on the end, lock the calf’s head in a stall, and then burn a ring around each horn. It essentially kills the horn. But if you wait too long and the horn gets too big, as irresponsible kids often did, then you had a mess. The horn was too big to fit the ring around. Now you had this nasty, pompous horn staring at you. So you had to take a bigger tool, a “lopper” of sorts, that would chop off the horn. Then the blood would start spewing as you tried to then do all the burning and killing at the base of the horn. We’d often do a whole day of this. Thirty calves or so. At the end of the day we’re covered in blood from head to toe, manure all over us from fighting those calves, covered in the smell of burnt hair and flesh.
What does that look like? Like pastors and all the saints of God after a day in this world fighting that pompous, Satanic horn antichrist. Bloodied and stinking from head to toe. We ought to learn to burn off that pompous, little horn sooner. We have the tools to dehorn the great beast. We have the Christ, the Son of Man. We have a kingdom stronger than Babylon, stronger than Persia, stronger than Rome, and certainly stronger than any nation today. We have the Church forever, forever and ever! We have the Word of God, prayer, absolution, the Sacrament to burn that horn to death. Daniel turned to the Christ and the lions didn’t touch him. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego turned to the Christ and the fire didn’t touch them. They didn’t even smell like smoke.
The pompous horn barked at them but they dehorned his power with the Word of God. They turned away from the nasty horn and turned their eyes and heart to the kingdom, the Church, that is forever, forever and ever. So, you worn-out pastors with worn-out saints in your congregation, turn your hearts and your eyes to Daniel’s vision once again. See the Ancient of Days taking his seat among the thrones. Our Father who art in heaven. See His clothing white as snow in the holiness which He gives to us in Christ. See His throne of fiery flames with fire issuing before Him to burn the beast and the pompous horn. See the ten thousand times ten thousand angels before Him and see the book of life opened in the court. The book with your name written in it.
See the one like a Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven—died, risen, and ascended to the right hand of the Father. See the lamb once slain and now victorious from the grave. See Him given all the dominion of the entire world, all peoples, nations, and languages. And see His Church, His kingdom, which He has given to the saints. The Church forever, forever and ever. And tell the horn to eat fire.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.