What in the World is Happening? with Sonja Knutson

Daniel starts with stories that feel familiar: pressure at school, pressure at work, pressure to fit in, and the quiet strength it takes to stay faithful. Then Daniel 7 through 12 hits like a genre change. Suddenly we are staring at beasts, horns, angels, spiritual warfare, and timelines that do not line up the way we want. If you have ever opened these chapters and thought, “What in the world is happening?”, you are not alone. Daniel felt troubled and overwhelmed too, and we say that part out loud.

We take a guided, listener friendly tour through the final six chapters of the Book of Daniel, highlighting what the visions are doing and why they matter. The big idea is not cracking a secret code; it is learning how to live as people of faith in exile. We talk about “Babylon” as the spiritual pressure of our world, the pull toward pride and control, and the exhaustion that comes from nonstop news and anxiety. We also name the real life fires and beasts we face: illness, grief, money stress, broken relationships, and the feeling that you cannot make sense of what God is doing.

At the center is one of the clearest Old Testament pictures of Jesus: the Son of Man receiving an everlasting kingdom. Kingdoms roar for a while, but they do not get the last word. God does. If you need steady hope, practical encouragement, and a reason to keep praying when you do not understand, press play, then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the promise that outlasts the pattern.

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Transcript

Welcome And Series Wrap Up

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Good morning, Central. My name is Sonia Knutz and I'm Pastorial Associate here at Central. It's a privilege to be worshiping with you today and to come along this team. We've been a small team lately. Ben was in Florida with his mission team. Kirsten was on using PTO. Isabel had her baby. Is that a secret? We knew, right? Okay. It's not our story to tell, but she had her baby. Let's see, Ryan, Katie obviously have been gone. We were kind of small this week, but we were busy. Ben came back this morning and I'm like, how was your trip? He's like, it was really hot. And I'm like, it's Florida in July. And you planned it. So not a lot of sympathy in that one. So today we come to the final week of our journey through the book of Daniel, and we are concluding this book in this series called Pattern to Promise. Aw, I know you're disappointed a little bit, right? If you've been following along, I think we think it's been fun. Has it been fun for you? Yes, that sounded so convincing. Maybe. Next week, a gentleman named Pear Nielsen is going to be here from Masters Institute. He's going to be one of our last guest preachers for the summer. We've had three guest preachers to help fill in since Ryan's been on sabbatical. And then Ben will kick off our UPIC series in the month of August. That will take us all the way to Fawfest. And dun-dun dun, guess who comes back on Fawfest Sunday? Beirdo. No kidding. Ryan is coming back finally. We've missed him. It's been really quiet, though, in the office. To be honest with you, it's been kind of nice. So far through this series, we've seen how human patterns easily can trap us. That's why we call it pattern to promise. Our human patterns that take us down a road that God does not want us to go. So our patterns of greed and boastfulness and compromise and fear and pride. But we've also discovered that God's promises are always greater than our patterns, and his faithfulness is what leads us out of our patterns. In this book, Daniel has invited us into his own life story. He wasn't writing from the comfort of an easy life. He wrote as a captive in a foreign land, a man who watched kingdoms rise and fall while remaining steadfast in his faith. His story reminds us that faithfulness to God doesn't always change our circumstances, but it does shape our character and it allows us to experience God's faithfulness in return. In the past six or seven weeks, we hope and we've worked through chapters one through six, and we've watched four young men refuse to compromise in Babylon. We've seen kings consumed by pride and fires and statues and mysterious dreams and handwriting on the wall, and one king who was driven into the wilderness to live like an animal. It's been one incredible story after another that Daniel lived or witnessed through the perspective of others. Today we arrive at chapters 7 through 12,

Why Daniel Gets Weird Fast

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and everything changes. Now, if you read my Awaken email this week that was sent out on Thursday, you may have heard my frustration with Pastor Ben. Anyone? Yeah. And so it's a true story. So back in May, he sent the series, he created the series, and he said, What do you think? I didn't really read the email. I'm like, it looks great. And in June, I started digging into the chapters that he assigned himself to preach on, and then the chapters that he assigned me to preach on. And today we come to this, let's close out the chapter. My assignment is just take the last six chapters of Daniel's and push them all into one sermon. It's gonna be easy, he said. It's gonna be simple, he said. You're gonna have fun, he said. Have you read chapters seven through twelve? They're crazy. It's like taking an action-packed movie and halfway through, like throwing in sci-fi and then ending with a little girl running through the meadow with a bouquet of flowers. Even the seasoned, most most seasoned Bible readers scratching their heads and they're saying, What in the world is happening in this? And that is the sermon title for me today. What in the world is happening? It hasn't been simple, it isn't easy, and I'm still waiting for the fun to kick in, Ben. There's simply too much to unpack in one Sunday. And so today, instead of pretending that I can hit every detail between these chapters, I've decided I'd rather do something a little bit different. I want to give you like a brief tour through each chapter, seven through 12. We're going to touch little points on each piece. And then I'm going to encourage you to go home if you haven't already read it, to read through those chapters by yourself, with a spouse, with your journey group, maybe your house church, and formulate a bunch of questions and send them all to Ben. He'll be happy to take care of that for you. But I want to challenge you today when we leave as we close up these 12 chapters, that you would find yourself in Daniel's story. Because throughout this past summer, Ben and I have been receiving emails and questions because people are finding themselves in Daniel's story. It might be questions of frustration, it might be questions of like clarity and something in their life has happened. It might be questions about why did Daniel do this, or I can't have faith like that. Whatever that is, I want to dive into it because before Daniel was a faithful servant, he was a young man living an ordinary life. And before God entrusted him with extraordinary visions, Daniel had spent decades being a believer in ordinary moments. And so my hope is that today we find ourselves in our ordinary moments being more like Daniel, living faithful, content, and steadfast lives. Are you with me? Great. Well, let's begin in prayer this morning.

Prayer And A House Story

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Father, we give you thanks and praise for this amazing man in this beautiful story and all the stories that he compiled, all of the situations and circumstances that he lived in that were crazy from chapter one all the way through chapter 12. And I pray, God, that as we continue to hear and work through this book, that we do see ourselves in these stories. That's why you've compiled these stories in this amazing, lovely word of you. This book we call the Bible. May we use it as a tool in our lives to grow deeper and stronger and closer with you. We love you, Jesus. In your name we pray. Amen. Well, I genuinely love homes. I love everything about them. I love exteriors, interiors, I love all the details in a house. My husband and I have built five homes together and we have bought three homes and we have remodeled them. And because of that, I can tend to shut out other parts of my life because I get insumed, my brain gets insumed of homes. If I go into a friend's house, I'm not looking for like the cleanliness, but I'm checking out all the details. If I go into a building, if I see something on TV, I'm checking out the home, which often draws me away from like the plot of the movie or the sitcom. And sometimes that takes me down a really dark path because I can't focus on what the storyline is, right? Do you know what I mean? So have you ever seen a TV show and you look at this cute little bungalow that this sitcom family is supposed to be living in, and you walk in the front door and there's this amazing two-story home. I'm like, that that doesn't make any sense at all. So, for example, the iconic Brady Bunch house. Are we all familiar with this home? It doesn't make sense. My friend Joan would tell me, as a realtor, when you're walking in that front door, it should be a multi-level home, right? But it's not. It's a traditional two-story in there with a sunken living room. I'm like, this doesn't make any sense. I'm not following this story because I'm distracted by the detail of the layout of the house. That doesn't make sense. And when I read Daniel chapters seven through 12, this is what this feels like to me. Chapters one through six make sense. Cute little bungalow. I'm walking in, I can hear the stories, I see God in it. All is good. Chapters seven through twelve, it's like I'm walking up to a rambler, a one-level home, and I walk in and there's this massive two-story with the stairware going to nowhere and these dark hallways and these strange rooms. None of it makes sense. It's a disheveled mess. The timelines in these chapters start jumping around. The events aren't in chronological order. The language switches back from Aramaic to Hebrew. Daniel is seeing visions that he can't interpret, but yet in one through six, he could interpret them. There are beasts with horns and angels interpreting dreams and symbols that leave you wondering, what in the world is happening? And we're not alone. Daniel himself was confused in his story. More than once throughout chapters seven through ten, he's confused and he admits, I'm troubled, I'm overwhelmed, and I'm left understanding without understanding.

Daniel 7 And The Beast Kingdoms

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So let's take a tour through these chapters, and we're going to start with chapter seven. When Daniel sees these terrifying beasts right out of the sea and through a vision and in a dream, he sees a lion with eagle's wings, a bear with three ribs in its mouth, a leopard with four wings and four heads, and a fourth beast so terrifying Daniel can't even compare it to any other animal. It has iron teeth, ten horns, and then one of the little horns starts suddenly talking to him. These beasts represent the great kingdoms of the earth and human empires that they believe will hold all of the power. And then just when you think the beast can't be stopped, the scene shifts. It's like the camera pulls back from the chaos of the earth to the throne room of heaven, and the sun, a man, approaches, and suddenly the message becomes clear for Daniel. Messages, the kingdoms of this world may roar for a while, but they will not have the final word. God will have the final word. And in my opinion, he could have stopped the book right there. There's peace. God will have the final

Daniel 8 And The Prophecy Hope

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word. But no, instead, we move to chapter eight, which brings another vision. This time Daniel sees a ram with two horns charging across the earth, and out of nowhere a goat comes flying in. The goat has one massive horn. He crashes into the ram, shattering its horn, but now four horns replace it, and out of one of those, another little horn pops up, starts talking, was agonizing and threatening war against God's people. What is it with the talking horns? Really? Well, Daniel's just the sins of his people, but for his own well-being as well. And while he's praying, heaven interrupts him. And the angel Gabriel appears with one of the most profound prophecies in all of Scripture, a promise that God is not only bringing his people home from exile, but that the one day he will deal with sin once and for all and anoint the most holy one, which of course we know to be Jesus. And wouldn't that be the perfect way to end this book? But Daniel's story isn't over.

Daniel 10 Through 12 Spiritual War

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And we move then into chapters 10 through 12, where Daniel is now an old man. He's mourning, he's fasting, he's seeking God once again, and an angel appears and reveals something Daniel could never have imagined. A spiritual battle is taking place, which is different from all the earthly battles, all the different wars that Daniel has already witnessed and experienced. This battle is not one for human eyes. It's of heavenly and demonic forces contending in ways that affect what happens here on earth. And his response is silence. It's peace. I'm sure he's confused, tired, and dumbfounded, for what he is hearing is beyond understanding. It speaks of an Antichrist and darkness and famine and great bloodshed. And for us, it mirrors the books of the book of Revelation. And Daniel is silent in all of it, and he is peaceful. And as we close chapter 12 at the end of this book, after all the beast, after all the battles, after all the strange and confusing visions, God gives Daniel one last promise. He says, Yes, there will be trouble and there will be suffering, but there will also be peace, as he is given a glimpse of the resurrection when he says, One day death itself will be defeated, and God's people will rise to everlasting life. God doesn't answer every chaotic question or explain every scene about the horns and the beast and the timelines. He ends the book reminding us what matters most, that God is still in his throne, history is still God's hands, and his people still have a future. After twelve chapters of exile and fires and wars and destruction and a whole lot of oddities, the message of Daniel remains remarkably simple that God is in control. And then God says to Daniel, Go your way until the end. In other words, Daniel, you've done your part, you've remained faithful. Now trust me with the rest, my faithful servant. From the first chapter where Daniel is just a teenager, ripped away from everything familiar and brought to Babylon, to the last chapter where he is an old man, he has watched kings rise and fall, empires come and go, and history unfold before his eyes. And what does God say to him at the end? Go your way, rest. I've got this. What a beautiful ending for Daniel. Because his life wasn't beautiful or neat or easy. It was filled with fear and disappointment, unanswered questions, long seasons of waiting and moments when obedience cost him almost everything. Sound familiar? It should. It's me. It's you. It's our stories inside of Daniel's stories.

Seeing Our Lives As Babylon

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We too have fires and trials. We have beast and visions. We have circumstances that we cannot explain or understand. Ours just look different. They look like a mom and dad trying to figure out how to raise their children in a world that keeps changing. Or they look like a marriage struggling to hold it together when life gets hard. They look like beast. It might be diagnosis or illness, or how to care for aging parents, or grieving the loss of a loved one. They look like fires that are wondering what our retirement is going to look like and if we have enough money saved for it. Or they might look like living by a neighbor who doesn't look like you or act like you has strange flags hanging outside their house. Our trials are the news and the political banter that is nonstop noise in our heads. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, we're asking, God, what in the world is happening here? Where are you? And what are you doing? You see, we're living in Babylon too, not geographically, but spiritually, because every day we're surrounded by voices telling us what to value, who we should become, what success looks like, and where we should place our hope. Babylon isn't simply just a place on a map. It's every voice that invites us to trust ourselves more than we trust God. And not only are we living in Babylon, but we are the characters as well in the Daniel

The Hard Faith That Will Not Bow

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story. Sometimes we're Nebuchadnezzar and Belshizer, the kings from chapters one through six, the kings that were lost in themselves, in their egos, in their own self-control. The ones that say, Yeah, we know God, we know that you've been good to us. But our pride keeps creeping back in, and we begin building our own little kingdoms around the things that we want, we desire, convinced that we're in control until life reminds us we're not. Addiction, greed, ego, broken relationships, unexpected loss take over, and suddenly the kingdoms we've built begin to crumble. Other times we're like Daniel in the den, who was so faithful, or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abedigo, those three ordinary men who refuse to bow, even if it meant walking into a fire. Their faith wasn't based on outcomes, it was based on trust. Our God is able to serve and save us, but if not, we will not bow. That's a hard faith to have, amen. It's the kind of faith that stands in the fire, it's the kind of faith that has difficult conversations without fear. It's the kind of faith that quietly says Jesus is Lord, even when the culture says otherwise. I met with a dear friend this week who told me about a conversation that she had had with someone who was questioning who Jesus was in her life and in this world. My friend walked away wishing she had said more, wishing she had defended her faith better. Maybe you felt that way at times. Our hope is in a gracious God who keeps using imperfect people. And I reminded her that the Holy Spirit is far better at changing our hearts than we are, and through his grace, when we fall short, God gives us other opportunities to speak, other opportunities to love, and other opportunities to witness Christ. Or maybe today you feel like Daniel, not the Daniel that was fearless in the first six chapters, but the Daniel that was tired in chapters seven through twelve, the Daniel that was confused, wondering what God is doing as you read the headlines and watch the news in this world we live in. And you quietly ask, What the world is happening? And here's what I love about Daniel. Whenever he didn't understand, he didn't run from God, he ran to God. He prayed and he confessed. Did you notice that? This man who stood before kings and survived lions and interpreted dreams and remained faithful for decades still fell on his knees and confessed his own sins. Daniel knew he didn't stand before God because he was extraordinary. He stood before God because God is merciful, which brings us to the center of this entire book.

Jesus On The Throne And The Charge

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In the middle of all the strange visions and frightening beasts comes one of the clearest pictures of Jesus in the entire Old Testament. When Daniel writes, I looked and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He was given authority and glory and sovereign power. His domain is an everlasting domain that will never pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. Friends, hundreds of years before Bethlehem, Daniel saw Jesus, not in a manger, but on a throne. The beast didn't get the last word in Daniel's story, and through our faith, they won't have the last word in our stories either. Well, God will, for his kingdom is everlasting, his reign has no end, and because his kingdom cannot be shaken, neither can the hope of those who belong to him, which may be the greatest lesson in the whole book of Daniel and in our own stories. So when the beast comes, the fires rage, the trials and the confusion are overwhelming, and when you feel like you've been living in the wilderness and Babylon is knocking at your door, think of Daniel and his stories. Pray, confess, remain faithful in the ordinary moments, refuse to let Babylon define who you are and trust the one who already knows the ending. Because Central, God is in control. Amen.