Daniel 7

Oh.

Good evening, this is truth in love so thankful that you could join us. Thank you for watching. Thank you for your support. Would you pray for us? Would you uh, there's Deontay. Thank you for the comment.

Thank you for the heart brother. Would you pray for us? Would you? Participate would you give us a heart like Deontay? Would you give us a comment? Let us know that you're watching if you have any questions.

We'd love to try to answer your questions. We don't have all the answers, but we'd love to try to help you out encourage you. Truth and love comes from Ephesians chapter 4 verse 15, but speaking the truth in love.

We're to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head even Christ? So as we teach as we talk as we have a discussion. We want to speak truth and love and we want to grow up in all aspects into Christ because he is he's our creator.

He's our Lord. He's our sustainer. He's he's everything. And we want you to know him as well. We want you to know him if you don't know him At all as as your Savior. We want you to be saved once we to be born again.

If you if you are saved we want you to be built up. Want you to know him better just like we want to know him better. Tonight we are Trying something different. I don't think that you can see my phone On the video, but my phone is my phone is right here beside me.

We it's facing the screen. And so it's seeing what I see, but I am going live on another platform. Just to see how it goes and we may get some Traffic tonight from there some questions from there, but tonight we're going to be looking at Daniel chapter 7.

And if you have your Bibles you can turn there with us. Daniel chapter 7. We've we've looked Practically look at Daniels chapter 1 through 6 already. We looked at the prophecies at the beginning of the book the the middle sections there.

We're kind of historical. About Daniel and his his three friends and things that were going on with him the transition between the Kings. And that we're going to be looking at more prophecy again and as we'll read this is not.

This is not Daniel prophesying Someone else's vision or someone else's dream, but this is actual actually Daniel having a dream. Daniel having Visions called night visions in the text and he gives us the interpretation.

So I'm looking forward to Dan so thankful that Dan continues to join me and and participate in this. Dan is going to give some commentary as we as we look to the book of Daniel and I wanted to say this as We begin.

We're looking at Prophecy we're looking at prophecy in the book of Daniel and I know that that many of you just like me May have only heard of one particular viewpoint of eschatology eschatology just simply means in times or in things and so when you think of Something that like that what Dan and I are doing we're looking at the prophecies in the book of Daniel.

You may be thinking that we are looking at this prophecy. And we're looking for it to be fulfilled in in our future. It's an event that is yet to take place.

But.

The position that Dan and I hold Is what is called? Partial preterist and Preterist is just another Large theological word that we don't use every day simply means past. So we believe that many of the prophecies that were spoken of in the Bible have happened in the past and such as the case for Daniel chapter 7 and if you're looking for Consistency if you're looking for clarity I think that you're going to see it tonight as we read the text as Dan gives us some commentary I think you're going to see some consistency.

I think you want to see some clarity. We don't have to try to pull things out of the air And pull things from other texts to try to make this some sort of puzzle fit together. That doesn't really fit together.

I think you're going to see some clarity and some consistency in Scripture that maybe you've never seen before as we go through this text. So I don't see any comments yet from the other platform. We got some folks joining us on The platform that we are normally on which is good.

So thank you guys for watching. Let's go ahead and jump into the text starting at Daniel chapter 7 Verse 1 so follow with me as we as we look at these verses together in the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel saw a dream and visions in his mind as He lay on his bed, and then he wrote the dream down and related the following summary of it.

Daniel said I was looking in my vision by night and beheld the four winds of heaven were Stirring up the great sea and four great beasts were coming up from the sea different from one another. The first was like a lion and had the wing of an eagle.

I.

Kept looking until its wings were plucked and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man. A Human mind also was given to it and behold another beast a second one resembling a bear and it was raised up On one side and three ribs were given We're in its mouth between its teeth and thus they said to it arise devour much meat.

After this, I kept looking and behold another one like a leopard Which had on its back four wings of a bird. The beast also had four heads and dominion was given to it. After this, I kept looking in night visions and behold a fourth beast dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong.

And I and it had a large iron teeth. And it had large iron teeth it devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder With its feet and it was different from all the beasts that were before us and it had ten horns.

While I was contemplating the horns beheld another horn a little one Came up among them and three of the first horns were pulled out By the roots before it and behold this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth uttering great.

Boast.

Wow, we've got beasts we got leopards we got bears with human mind with. Do what? Oh my Lines and Tigers and bears on my wings and teeth and iron teeth and ribs in their mouths you know this. Comes across as you know, really confusing and it's not the type of literature that we're normally acquainted with.

Why don't you jump in and fill us in on what's going on? Yeah, the first beast is.

Well, first off all these beasts are symbolizing kingdoms they're. They're a picture of the kingdom that is is coming in Daniels time or Starting in Daniels time and continuing on afterwards. So when you Excuse me, so when you start at the beginning you first beast you have is a griffin a line with with wings on.

It looks like the dude from The was at the start of movies with a big old Griffin comes down.

There's the never-ending story with a dog with wings.

But.

That beast that comes down its wings are plucked off so something is Done to this kingdom where its wings are plucked off. It's made to stand up like a man. It's two-footed. That's a weird-looking line.

Stand up on its hind legs. I assume it's hind legs. Be weird if it was walking on his front paws, right? It's given the mind of a man. Now real quick if you just look back the last few chapters kind of understand what's going on.

What was? The kingdom was taken from Nebuchadnezzar for a short time. He was then made to eat grass like a beast look like he had feathers and he was all sorts of jacked up and then.

He.

Was finally set up on his own two feet in his mind returned to him. He's given the mind of a man again. It's describing Nebuchadnezzar. Because what you have here is nothing more than the previous visions the one that was given to the king.

You know in the statue of Daniel is given again in a different manner this time with beasts. So you have a consistent message all the way throughout Daniel. This is what God has said to Nebuchadnezzar.

Here are the four kingdoms that are coming. Here's what's gonna happen with God's kingdom in the end of it. And then he shows you in the intervening chapters that we went over last last time. This is how it looks either looks like God conquering the nations through bringing them to faith in Christ or By actually trampling them down and taking away their kingdom from them.

Excuse me, I got some sort of allergy thing going on. It just came out of nowhere. Then you have the bear the bear has three ribs in his mouth. I Was told to devour much flesh. If you know much about the the Medo-Persian Empire it just Decimated everyone that came across it.

I.

Devouring flesh is a good way of putting it. So the Medo-Persian Empire then would be that bear. And then you if you go down to The leopard the leopard had four wings. Very quick and four heads. It was given dominion.

Alexander took over the world. The Greek Empire took over the world very quickly. I mean he you thought the Germans did it fast. Oh, no. The the Greek Empire took over all the way to to to India. Like like it was nothing.

They just ran over everything at that point. Alexander was Partying a little too much Contracted syphilis, I believe and and died. He was. It wasn't very old. He's in his 30s. I think mid or early 30s and died when he died.

The the kingdom the Greek kingdom was split between four people. There was a Seleucids and the Ptolemies and there was two other ones. Those are those four heads that you see. The leopard that went out went out Conquering as one.

Think four wings on one animal going out. Four heads for Kings. The kingdom was split into four after Alexander had had passed on.

Can I can I take a timeout right here? Absolutely. I just want to reiterate for everybody that's watching or may watch this later. So what Dan has been talking about is The book of Daniel it is providing a consistent message.

Now. This is the same message. You said that's that comes from Daniel chapter 2. But it looks different the the vision and the dream looks different but you're saying the message is the same, right? Yep.

Okay, and then. You're as you're describing these these beasts if if you want to if you're watching and you're you want to take some mental notes. Because I want you to say I really want you guys to see.

The consistency and the clarity and how how beautifully.

Prop.

God has given this prophecy and prophecy has worked out and prophecy in history. And how all these things are coming together. I really would like for you guys to see that the consistency and the clarity and the the beauty of God's Word prophecy in history.

So mentally or if you have the ability to take some notes as Dan is talking about The this Alexander and after Alexander leaves The it you said splits up into two four different Kingdoms, right and that's the that's the four heads of this this beast the the leopard.

Yeah, the leopard Has four heads. So, you know If you can take these notes mentally or you can write them down on paper and then go back over them put them put these notes together. You're gonna see this great consistency.

So sorry for the interruption. I just want to encourage folks to to make these notes so they can see for themselves the the consistency and the clarity of God's Word, so. Take it back over. All right.

Then you have in in verse 7 you have a terrible beast. It's a ugly beast. In other words. It was something that There wasn't a good Descriptor animal so no.

You'd.

You'd call a Nation or a person who Will get in there get scrappy and dirty and just fight it out. You'd call them, you know a junkyard dog. You'd uh You'd describe Babylon best by a lion who's roaring and destroying who's quick and has Wings like an eagle.

You'd say that the Medo-Persians are they're just gonna like bowl you over and then tear you apart with their claws. They're just bigger and stronger and they're they're gonna bully you. The the Greek Empire was was fast and quick and.

Destructive.

But also split into four. The Roman Empire the one that came next Had no One-to-one Correlation to the animal kingdom. There wasn't something that they could he could. So he just said it was ugly. It was just cobbled up thrown together weird-looking beast.

Also, think of the beast from the never-ending story. That that one guy when the the nothing comes to take over and he's that big black dog looking creature. It's just a terrible beast, you know iron teeth looking horrible.

It's got a bunch of heads and crowns and horns and Just ugly. And I think that has to do with the way that the Roman Empire Was put together. The Roman Empire wasn't just one people. It it started off like that like the Rome grew their drew their their army and then they grew their their Their base, but when they went into other places, they didn't conquer them and then make them become Roman.

They allowed them to retain their own culture it's almost like If you think of Frankenstein's monster its head was made of One and legs made of another. It's almost like the Roman Empire took these different pieces and parts I found laying around the world and just kind of like stitched it to itself so you had all sorts of different cultures and peoples and languages that were kind of cobbled up and Put together into one.

It's just kind of ugly. I guess is a good way of putting it.

And.

Then it gets into having ten horns and three horns and one other horn and. We'll get into that a little bit later as we move on. But that that's a good overview of those Beasts of what they are what they're what they're trying to commute what Daniel's trying to communicate to us.

Through his record of the vision that he had.

Gotcha and so before we move before we move on in Daniel chapter 2 You have the status I'm trying to let the feedback Do its thing and then finish. In Daniel chapter 2 you have the statue and the statue represented four kingdoms and then here in Daniel chapter 7 you've got Beast which represent four kingdoms and they represent the same four kingdoms.

The first one was the Babylonian Chaldean Empire second one was the Medo-Persian third Macedonian Greek and Then the fourth one was the the Roman Empire.

So.

That pretty much where we are. Yeah. Okay now starting at verse 9 9 through 12 I kept looking until thrones were set up and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His vesture was like white snow and the hair of his head like pure wool.

His throne was ablaze with flames. Its wheels were a burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming out before him. Thousands upon thousands were attending him and Myriads upon myriads were standing before him.

The court sat and the books were opened. And I kept looking because of the sound of the boastful words, which were which the horn was speaking. I kept looking into. The beast was slain and its body was destroyed and given to the burning fire.

As for the rest of the beast their dominion was taken away. But an extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time. So what say you?

All sorts of stuff. This this is important because It's showing that these these things that are about to happen are not happening in a vacuum. These are happening at the direction of God. The Ancient of Days is a picture of God the Father in heaven.

His throne is set up he takes his seat. He is. He's sitting there and. Then it says the books are open. Something's about to happen. What is true has been recorded. What is right has been recorded. It's right there and he's about to make his judgment.

Then he has this this little horn from up above this one who's standing up. He's speaking all sorts of blasphemy blasphemies and all sorts of terrible things about God. Which will we'll get into that a little bit deeper later.

And what God does is he says? You're done no more and he Takes his kingdom away takes his dominion away and puts him down. And then it says as for the rest of the beast. Their dominion was taken away, but they're allowed to Go on for a period of time if you look, oh, excuse me If you look at the history of that time period.

Between the Babylonian Empire and the Roman Empire. Oh those those peoples remained even if their Prowess their. They weren't top dog anymore.

But.

They still retained some sort of a identity or a Foothold where they were still, you know themselves. They were conquered. There are conquered people. But they were still a people. They're allowed to remain for a while now.

Those those empires have faded away completely by now. The Roman Empire on the other hand since it was such a cobbled up mess. When it went it just went it was it was no more there was nothing holding it together.

Kind of like the the iron and clay of the first vision in Daniel 2. It was weak because iron and clay don't mix the strength of the kingdom and the. And the the shape that it had had no actual real cohesive substance to it and whenever.

What is when this stitch is dissolved on Frankenstein's monster it fell apart. That's a good way of thinking about it. But the the reason why I believe that section is put in scripture is to show us that this is all happening world history that the events leading up to this especially what happens in 13 through 13 and 14.

All of that happens at the direction of God in heaven. Because God is directing the steps of world world history. We don't serve a deist God who just kind of wound the clock and let it go or spun the top and let it fall however it wants to.

Our God is one who is in control of world history and is guiding and directing even kingdoms and nations as they go about their business.

That's.

What this section is talking about that all of those beasts? All those things that are taking place all of the the fates of each of those kingdoms rests squarely in the hands of The ancient of days the ones who have the one who has the books who has the throne and will sit in judgment over everyone who has.

Who speaks blasphemies against him?

Right.

And since you brought up 13 through 14, let's go to that. But before we do I just want to speak to everybody that that's watching or may watch this again. And and say this. There's gonna be people who.

Of course, we've talked about folks that hold a different viewpoint. That then we do on eschatology on end times. And if you listen or watch or read a book Explaining Daniel chapter 7 it may sound and look different than what we're presenting.

So what we're we're asking you to do is is be Bereans and and look at scripture study it with us to see. If what we're saying aligns with scripture if it aligns with history. If it's consistent. We we know that there's different viewpoints out there.

And so what what Dan is saying is that. These kingdoms. That that the book of Daniel is talking about. Were not only real kingdoms, but they were kingdoms of our past. That were we're leading up to something.

We believe that the book of Daniel was written to point to actually to someone and. And to a certain time and so these these nations these kingdoms that the book of Daniel is talking about. Have already exist have come and gone this has been fulfilled because it was Daniel was pointing to the Messiah and and when he would come and the beginning of the end.

Kind of all that stuff that happened at the time of the Messiah up until 70 AD.

But.

Look at both Scenarios. Look at both viewpoints. Line it up with scripture. Line it up with history. This is this is a viewpoint from where Dan and I see the most consistency. Where we see it makes the most sense to to understand the book of Daniel this way.

So if like I said if you have any questions Let us know and we'll try to answer those questions. So here's verses 13 and 14. I kept looking in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven one like a son of man was coming.

And he came up to the ancient of days. We've we've already looked at these verses once. He came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him and to him was given dominion Glory and a kingdom that all the people's nations and men of every language might serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

So up until this point there is general consensus across all the viewpoints. As to what we're talking about now, we're going to Not find consensus. But up until this point Identifying the different kingdoms is there's a general consensus across all viewpoints.

That these are the kingdoms that are being talked about now. Some may understand what it's happening in the last kingdom differently, but they still would call it Rome. Some may call it a revived Roman Empire.

I don't see that but we'll get to that coming up soon. What is a important here In this vision. There's one like a son of man one of Jesus's favorite things to call himself Son of man, and he was coming.

He was coming and he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him.

Now I.

Don't know how people will see this but Who was brought up and presented before the Father in heaven. It was Jesus, right? Jesus who was on the cross Who died who laid in the grave who proclaimed victory over sin death of the devil?

For three days got up out of the grave walked around ate fish Talked to his disciples on top of the tops of mountains and then went up into heaven. He said woman don't touch me. I haven't yet been perfected.

No, I haven't yet gone up to the father. He then went up to the father. He went up to the ancient of days and look what it says here in verse 13 and He came up Came up arose went up to the ancient of days was presented before him as.

What as.

Sacrifice. He was presented before God as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of men. And what was given to him at that time. To him was given dominion glory and a kingdom. Now think about this. What was it the last thing that Jesus said Matthew before?

He.

Before Matthew ended the book of Matthew ended. He says all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Therefore go and make disciples of who well it says right here that all peoples nations and men of every language might serve him go into all or Disciple the nations baptizing them in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit.

His dominion the dominion of Christ is an everlasting dominion And will not pass away and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed now I think everyone understands that that's going to be Christ or that is Christ.

What we differ on is the timing of all this. But as we see here in in Daniel if you look back in verse 13 it says and he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him and at that time and To him was given dominion glory and a kingdom.

It was at the Ascension. It was the it was the events of Jesus's Death burial resurrection and Ascension in the heaven. It was was the timing at which the Bible predicted and said that he Actually gained his kingdom when it was given to him.

Now someone want to push that off into A millennium some actually see this and say hey, that's us problematic. So there is a sense in which The kingdom is is here among us, even though it's not going to fully be here until later.

Now, I think that's That's stretching it a little bit that's inserting stuff that's just not there because what we see is that this Vision of the beasts and then the ancient of days and Christ in heaven the Son of Man Lines up perfectly with Daniel 2.

Daniel 2 it says in the days of these Kings the little stone Hit the kingdoms Crushed them took away the dominion as we saw the dominion being taken away in verses 11 and 12. Dominion was taken away and then the kingdom that put in their place Christ kingdom Then grows to fill the whole earth and what what is is here in verse 14?

It's a kingdom given to Christ at his Ascension after the the purchasing of salvation for Men and his dominion is over the peoples of the earth those people who formerly had power in the earth they are being Brought together into one kingdom the kingdom of Christ.

Yeah.

Before you. I Don't know where that Before you move forward. What you were saying reminds me of The conversation that I have things that people say and it reminds me of we're reading a book or reading a text an article really fast and we we skip over some words and They'll you know, we'll be talking about our differences in eschatology our differences and in times and how we see things and they're like no They that can't be because it's not happened yet.

It's gonna happen in the future and we'll go and look at the the verse that we're that's you know under discussion or though they'll give me a verse and we'll look at it and it's I Don't I don't understand personally how?

How folks. Read the text. Let me say it like this. I think as students of God's Word We need to be careful readers of the text careful readers of the verses. Because Just like the verse that you quoted in in Daniel chapter 2 It's like that's one of those one of those words one of those phrases that will get skipped over and.

You know.

Just as an example, you know people could say, you know, we're looking for that in the future. But if you go look at the text and you see those words see those phrases. The one that you were talking about said it will happen in the days of these Kings, okay, we we can't skip over that.

We can't look over that and we can't ignore it too so that we can make The Bible fit our view of eschatology. No, we have to Leave those words in there. Understand why God put those in there and and make eschatology fit According to the way God tells us it fits on.

The same thing is true with like the beginning of Revelation when when John says These these things are to come shortly. These things are near I'm a fellow partaker in the tribulation or in in Second Thessalonians chapter 2 where you're looking at the man of lawlessness Paul is it makes the comment something like These he's already at work or this is already at work This lawlessness or something to that effect.

Yeah, you know, those are phrases and words that we can't overlook With so basically my point is I want to encourage all of us to be careful readers of God's Word and not not skip over those. Because that can skipping over those words and phrases can really throw off How we understand Scripture.

That makes sense it does and and that's one of those things where It when we read through the Bible. We'll go through and we'll go over different passages from time to time. We'll notice things that we hadn't noticed before um a lot of times as those little phrases like that are.

Things that they just in our minds and the first few times we read it. Maybe it's just something that helps the the flow that they will. He had to put something there. You know, it's just a phrase that makes it makes the language makes sense.

But we don't actually stop to think, you know, what does that actually mean? What what happens is we will Will skip by. We won't put a lot of importance on those those phrases.

And.

We'll.

Put together in our minds a system or a scheme that works. Know what those phrases absent. And when we go back through and.

We.

We see them again. Then we then try to fit those little phrases into the scheme that we already have in our mind, right? For instance When we look at that that Roman Empire we look at the the terrible beast or the Feet of iron iron and clay we look at that Roman Empire.

I mean if we don't think of it as in the days of these Kings we may push all this off into the future. If we push it off all into the future and then we come back and see in the days of those Kings. But we have it now in the future we've got a problem and What is the solution?

Well, I know that the Roman Empire was put down Many years ago. So in order for all these things to make sense, then the Roman Empire has to come back. Well, let's make a fifth kingdom. That's the iron and clay.

It's got ten toes. Oh ten toes and there's ten horns over here. So Let's let's say that the kingdom Is in the future and then you have to insert a gap something that's not there in the first place. So if we can take all of our preconceived notions which you can't do but if we can take them as much as possible and Kind of just set them to the side and just allow the text to speak for itself as we walk through it we see that sometimes those Those things that we had that we had in our mind in this game that we have beforehand just aren't necessary we don't have to understand it as a revived Roman Empire in the future because We don't have to actually Separate out because it tells us it gives us that time indicator in the days of those Kings it tells us when these nations will be destroyed and when the kingdom of God will come because it says And he came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him and he was given a kingdom.

It's happened at the Ascension when Jesus went up to the Father. He was presented before him as a sacrifice for the sins of men and he was given a kingdom. We don't have to insert other things there to make it work because the text as a whole speaks to these things.

And anybody can be guilty of this. It's if if we're not careful. That's why it's always. It's always good to.

To.

Believe that the scriptures are true. The scriptures are right but that we could always be missing in our interpretation always be missing something but to know that even if we're Misunderstanding something in the text.

The text has not changed. It is true. It's real. It's it's Cohesive and the truth has been there the entire time laid out plainly in front of us, even if We don't necessarily get it. Yeah.

Absolutely, all right now when you said it may get a little more controversial. We have some disagreements discrepancies between the views but I think if you'll listen to the To our explanation. I think you will see some consistency.

I think that you will see What we're talking about when earlier when we said that Daniel the book of Daniel was pointing to something and we when we talk about the timelines Daniel gives us a time reference here in these verses, but I encourage you to to listen to this explanation and and Give it some give it some thought.

So we're starting in verse 15. As for me Daniel, my spirit was distressed within me and the vision in my mind kept alarming me. I personal of those who were standing by and began asking him the exact meaning of all this.

So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of these things the great beasts Which are four in number are four kings who will arise from the earth. But the Saints of the highest one will receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever.

For all ages to come. Then I desire to know the exact meaning of the four beasts which was different from all the others exceedingly dreadful with its teeth of iron and its claws of bronze and which devoured crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet and the meaning of the ten horns that were on its head and the other horn which came up before Which three of them fell namely that horn which had eyes and a mouth uttering great boast.

And which was larger in appearance than its associates. I kept looking at that horn was waging war with the Saints and overpowering them until the ancient of days came and Judgment was passed in favor of the Saints of the highest one and the time arrived when the Saints took possession of the kingdom.

Thus he said the four beasts will be a fourth kingdom on the earth Which will be different from all the other kingdoms and it will devour the whole earth and tread it down and crush it. As for the ten horns out of his kingdom ten kings will arise and another went will arise after them.

And he will be different from the previous ones and will subdue three kings. And he will speak out against the most high and wear down the Saints of the highest one and he will attend intend to make alterations in times and in law and they will be given into the hand for a time times and half the time.

But the court will sit for judgment and his dominion will be taken away Annihilated and destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty the dominion and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the Saints.

His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom and all the dominions Will serve and obey him. At this point the revelation ended as for me Daniel. My thoughts were greatly alarmed. Were greatly alarming me and my face grew pale, but I kept the matter to myself.

Well, it made Daniel sick. It made it made Daniel sick. So we can we can take this with some. With some humility as well if it can make a prophet of God's stomach just churn. Yeah, let's just take a deep breath.