Daniel’s Main Themes

September 22, 2026 | Posted by Ray Fowler

To celebrate the release of my new book, Daniel: Stories and Visions, I am sharing portions from the first chapter this week.

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Daniel’s Main Themes

We’ve looked at Daniel’s structure, history and genre. Finally, let’s close by looking at some of Daniel’s main themes. There are three main themes we find throughout the book of Daniel.

1) God’s sovereignty over nations and individuals

The first theme is God’s sovereignty over nations and individuals. You may remember the theme verse we read at the beginning of the message this morning, where Daniel praised the God of heaven and said: “Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning” (Dan. 2:20-21). God’s sovereignty over nations and individuals is a major theme throughout the book of Daniel.

2) God’s coming kingdom, which will never fail

Another important theme is God’s coming kingdom, which will never fail. We see this especially in the various visions in the book, which contrast the worldly empires that come and go with God’s kingdom, which rules forever.

3) Godly living in ungodly times

And then a final important theme is godly living in ungodly times. We see this especially in the historical narrative sections of Daniel, where Daniel and his friends stand strong and refuse to compromise.

Here is where it’s important to see the big picture versus the little picture. As with most apocalyptic literature, we need to be careful not to get bogged down with the details. Too many people have tried to use Daniel to predict the precise timing of the end of the world. For example, a man named Harold Camping famously predicted the end of the world on May 21, 2011. When May 22 arrived and we were all still here, he then revised it to October 21, 2011. When October 22 arrived and we were still all here, he stopped making predictions.

It’s the same with the book of Revelation and other apocalyptic writings. We can get so caught up in the visions and details that we miss the big picture, which is: 1) God is sovereign, 2) God’s kingdom is coming and will never fail, and therefore 3) we can live godly lives even in ungodly times.

~ Excerpted from the book Daniel: Stories and Visions by Ray Fowler

Click on the book image to view on Amazon.