Introduction to Daniel 7

Kootenai Church

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So let's open in prayer. Father, we are grateful for your word.

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It is life and truth to us. It is the revelation of your son, yourself, and your

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Holy Spirit. It is all we need for life and godliness in Christ Jesus. And this morning as we look into your word, it is with an expectation that you will teach us.

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Lord, I pray that I'm out of the way and you are sovereign and majestic in your word so that we get to know you even more today and love you even more today than we did this morning or yesterday.

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Father, it is your word that brings us to you, to your throne room. And as we look into the book of Daniel, it is appropriate for today as all of your word is.

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So teach us, encourage us, cause us to be more obedient. And we'll thank you for all you're going to do at Kootenai in Jesus' name, amen.

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So now some of the stuff we'll be going through, we're gonna read through Daniel chapter seven, but some of the stuff we'll be going through, you're gonna think

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I'm reading from a current newspaper. Now, not the Daily Bee because I don't read fiction, but it's very appropriate for what's going on today as all of scripture is, but the prophetic elements in Daniel are going to become even more poignant, if you will, as we go through it with all that's happening today.

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Now, I say that understanding that they said that during World War I, they said that during World War II, and so I'm not one of these that's gonna set a date for you, but we're close.

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I think most of what's gonna happen is in the rear view mirror. That's about all

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I will say as far as predictive cause I'm not a prophet. I didn't even know what

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I was gonna have for breakfast this morning. So let's open by reading chapter seven of Daniel.

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It's on page 1151, at least in my authorized.

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What do they call it? The non -Arminian standard version. In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions in his mind as he lay on his bed.

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Then he wrote the dream down and related the following summary of it. Daniel said,

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I was looking in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea.

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And four great beasts were coming up from the sea, differing from one another. The first was like a lion and had the wings of an eagle.

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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.

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A human mind also was given to it. And behold, another beast, a second one resembling a bear.

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And it was raised up on one side and three ribs were in its mouth between its teeth. And thus they said to it, arise, devour much meat.

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After this, I kept looking and behold, another one like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird.

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The beast also had four heads and dominion was given to it. After this, I kept looking in the night visions and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong, and it had large iron teeth.

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It devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet. And it was different from all the beasts that were before it.

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And it had 10 horns. While I was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little one came up among them.

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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 boasts.

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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.

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His throne was ablaze with flames. Its wheels were a burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before him.

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Thousands upon thousands were attending him and myriads upon myriads were standing before him. The court sat and books were opened.

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The books were opened. Then I kept looking because of the sound of the boastful words which the horn was speaking.

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I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body was destroyed and given to the burning fire.

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As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away but an extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time.

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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

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Ancient of Days and was presented before him and to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him.

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

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As for me, Daniel, my spirit was distressed within me and the visions in my mind kept alarming me.

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I approached one 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.

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These 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.

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Then I desired to know the exact meaning of the fourth beast 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.

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And the meaning of the 10 horns that were on its head and the other horn which came up and before which three of them fell, namely that horn which had eyes and a mouth uttering great boasts and which was larger in appearance than its associates.

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I kept looking and that horn was waging war with the saints and overpowering them.

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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.

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Thus he said, the fourth beast 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.

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As for the 10 horns out of this kingdom, 10 kings will arise and another will arise after them and he will be different from the previous ones and will subdue three kings.

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And he will speak out against the most high and wear down the saints of the highest ones. And he will intend to make alterations in times and in law.

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They will be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time. But the court will sit for judgment and his dominion will be taken away, annihilated and destroyed forever.

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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 of the highest one.

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His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom and all the dominions will serve and obey him. At this point, the revelation ended.

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As for me, Daniel, my thoughts were greatly alarming and my face grew pale, but I kept the matter to myself.

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I think I would be alarmed too. So this is, the entire chapter gives us an overview of Daniel's view of what happens in the end times.

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And as many of you who study prophecy know, there are quite a few differing opinions. And so one of the things we're going to do as we go through this,

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I'm going to, we're gonna have kind of a mini class on what the various views of the end times are without any commentary as to who's right or who's wrong, just so that we understand the players and the understanding of, understand the understanding, if you will, of chapter seven and later chapters in Daniel and Revelation.

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And we'll talk about the different dispensations or the different manifestations of the tribulation, those kinds of things, just so we have an understanding of what the church today believes.

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And I'm going to repeat something that I've repeated before. There are different views of the end times and these views are held by our brothers and sisters in the

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Lord, who simply have a different view of how things are going to manifest themselves and how they're going to complete.

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But I will say this, that at the end, the most important part of that whole chapter that we need to keep in mind, well, how can you say that there's a most important part of God's word?

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For today's purposes, it says, 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 of the highest one.

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His kingdom will be an everlasting one, an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey him.

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That will be our focus, that the culmination of everything as it comes in Daniel and Revelation and in the prophecies that we have is that God will be sovereign and he will be obeyed and he will be preeminent in all the earth and in all of the universe.

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As he should be. So those are the most important things to remember. And I forgot my little, do

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I need a clicker? Let me grab my clicker. It's a technological term, clicker.

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And we're assuming I know how to work it. Yeah, I didn't do that. So closing out, remember some of the book of Daniel was written in Aramaic, which was the language of the court at the time, which was the language of the people.

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Closing out the Aramaic section of the book of Daniel, chapter seven details a vision that fairly closely corresponds to the vision

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Nebuchadnezzar had in chapter two. So chapters seven through 12 contain dreams or vision that came to Daniel in the years of his later life, in the later years of his life.

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Some were received before the events that we read about in chapter five and six.

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At least one came after these events. Remember that chapter five was the story of the writing on the wall.

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It's been a while since we read it, but I'm sure you've all read Daniel several times, if not many times.

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And chapter six was the story of the lion's den. Counting the dream Nebuchadnezzar had, there are five visions or dreams in the book of Daniel.

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The first, of course, is Nebuchadnezzar's dream, which details the general sweep, in general, the sweep of history with the

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Gentile nations ending with the kingdom of God. The second is the vision in chapter seven of the four beasts also ending with the dominion of Christ.

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The third vision occurs in Daniel chapter eight and describes the Medo -Persian empire and the

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Grecian empire. The fourth vision occurs in chapter nine and is most often called the 70 weeks vision, which details a period of 490 years between the reign of Artaxerxes and the baptism of Christ.

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And the fifth vision comes in Daniel chapters 10 through 12 where Daniel is shown historical progression from his time until the final days.

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The general consensus of conservative scholars, Bible scholars, is that, did we lose me?

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Nope. The general consensus of conservative scholars is that this vision covers the history or the trajectory of the four world empires,

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Babylon, Medo -Persia, Greece, and Rome, with the culmination being the second coming of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and the introduction of the fifth and final kingdom, the eternal kingdom of God.

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The idea that this chapter flushes out the happenings in chapter two has not been without challenge, but the similarities are simply far too close to be easily explained away.

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Okay, can I just go to the next one? There are only two major differences in this particular view.

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Chapter two details the dream of a heathen king. Chapter seven is a vision of God.

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That's too far, but that's okay. I will try it. Okay, here we go.

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Chapter two details the dream of a heathen king. Chapter seven is the vision of a man of God. In the dream, the dream in chapter two presents the history of the nations as though they are wonderful and majestic, what has been called their outer aspect.

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Chapter seven looks at the inward spiritual aspect of the nations and renders them as though they were wild beasts.

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This has been likened to their inward spiritual aspect. One commentator said the first is a view of the history of nations as man sees them, and the second is a view as God sees them.

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God sees the inner. He sees the real man. He understood who Nebuchadnezzar, what he was, and all the remaining or continuing empires as they succeed one another one by one.

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Chapter two views world history from a human perspective and paints it as glorious and majestic, a panorama of power and wonder.

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Chapter seven views history from God's perspective as immoral, brutal, and depraved.

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Chapter seven has far more detail than chapter two, and as one commentator notes, is something of a commentary on chapter two.

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Seven is. Critics have reserved some of their greatest contempt for chapter seven, demonstrating again their artificial criteria for judging the book of Daniel as a second century

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B .C. history rather than the sixth century B .C. prophecy. Remember, we've talked about that.

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There were, Daniel was too accurate, and so people said he couldn't have been that accurate, therefore this is not, this was written in the second century and not the sixth century

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B .C., because nobody can be that accurate. Well, God can be that accurate. In case you were wondering.

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I know you weren't. Critics believe that it was originally written in Hebrew and then translated into Aramaic.

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There is absolutely no historical justification for this, and it is simply an assumption. It is much more likely that it was written in the language of the time, which was

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Aramaic. Conservative scholars then look at the vision in this chapter and the vision in chapter two as directly related so that the four beasts of chapter seven correspond directly to the four parts of the human statue in chapter two.

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Thus, the winged lion represents or corresponds to the Babylonian kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar. The bear corresponds to the

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Medo -Persian kingdom, and the winged leopard corresponds to the Grecian empire. And finally, the unnamed fourth beast corresponds to the

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Roman empire. Culver, Daniel Culver, in his commentary on Daniel Observes, he says this. Since the same general subject is treated in this vision as the dream of chapter two, it is natural that the same general principles present in that prophecy should follow here.

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The same series of powers, the same continuity of rule, degeneration of character of authority, division of sovereignty, and increasing strength of the kingdoms.

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However, it is not to be expected that this will be a mere repetition of the prophecy of chapter two under different figures.

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We might expect some elaboration and enlargement of details. And this is just what does take place in chapter seven.

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The fourth or Roman kingdom, which in chapter two is given no more particular treatment than the first three, is here picked out for special treatment.

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Furthermore, the final Antichrist, who does not appear at all in chapter two, is here introduced as a little horn and identified as the final king of the fourth kingdom.

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Careful conservative scholarship also rejects the idea that the fourth kingdom is Greece and not

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Rome. The idea is completely unsupported by the book of Daniel and is contradicted by New Testament revelation.

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For example, the abomination of desolation spoken of by the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 24 is spoken of as future, which would preclude the idea that Antiochus Epiphanes fulfilled that prophecy.

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Further, as John Walvert explains in his commentary, many other parallel predictions between Daniel and other biblical books demonstrate that much of Daniel, that much that Daniel predicted is yet to come.

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Prophecies in the book of Revelation written in the late first century also anticipate as future the fulfillment of parallel prophecies in Daniel.

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For example, Revelation 13 parallels the final stage of Daniel's fourth empire, the

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Roman empire. This could not therefore refer to events fulfilled in the second century BC. Daniel 9 .26

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announces that the Messiah will be cut off and the city of Jerusalem destroyed, events that occurred in the

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Roman period. The Jewish historian Josephus believed that Daniel had predicted the rise of Rome and the

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Roman destruction of Jerusalem. And he said this, in the same manner Daniel also wrote concerning the

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Roman government and that our country should be made desolate by them, unquote. The author of the apocryphal book, 2nd

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Esdras, who lived near the close of the first century AD clearly identified the fourth kingdom of Daniel's vision as the

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Roman empire in chapter 12, verses 11 and 12. This is not scripture, but it's a historical book.

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To these arguments may be added the details of the second, third and fourth empires throughout the book of Daniel, which harmonize precisely with the

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Medo -Persian, Greek and Roman empires. The alternate views of the critics can be held only if Daniel's prophecy is considered in factual error in several places, since the details of the prophecy do not really coincide with the critics theories.

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For these reasons, conservative scholars have held firmly to the traditional identification of the four empires in Daniel seven, or excuse me, in chapter seven of Daniel, which mirror those of chapter two.

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And finally, it is notable to remember that the stone made without hands in Daniel chapter two, that suddenly and completely destroys the final kingdom, does it in an instantaneous fashion.

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It is not accomplished over a long period of time, slowly but surely, but rather all at once.

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This will become important as we compare Daniel to revelation and to the predictions that the Lord Jesus Christ himself made.

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So that would be a reintroduction of the introduction of the book of Daniel that we did back in probably late

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October. I'm slower than Jim, huh? Of course, if you take a six month hiatus, you end up slower.

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So let's look at chapter seven, verse one. We'll start into this. In chapter seven, verse one, the word of God says this.

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In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions in his mind as he lay on his bed.

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Then he wrote the dream down and related the following summary of it. Have any of you ever had a dream and it was kind of vivid when you got up, but by noon you had forgotten it?

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I actually have had some interesting dreams that I thought to write down and didn't and promptly forgot them.

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I did have a dream one time when my brother -in -law shot me. I remember that one. And we're actually good buddies, so I'm still wondering about that dream.

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But that's about all the, I don't attach any significance to dreams. The dreams in scripture that are interpreted in scripture, great stuff.

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Dreams today, they're just dreams. Some become Jurassic Park, you know. So Daniel had this dream and he wrote the details down.

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The first year of Belshazzar was most likely 553 BC. This dream would have come to Daniel in a period of time between the events of chapters four and five, about 14 years before the fall of Babylon.

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So Daniel actually had this dream between the recording of Nebuchadnezzar's vision and the event of the handwriting on the wall.

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It was in between those. Daniel actually took the time to write down a summary of this dream, which was an excellent idea, since like I said, dreams escape us if we don't write them down, if we don't chronicle them.

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It should be noted also that this was a dream that occurred while Daniel slept on his bed as opposed to a series of visions that came to him while he was awake.

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The dream came to him a few years after the dream Nebuchadnezzar had. Daniel was in his late 60s when he wrote in this book, in his book about the dream, but he had the details that he had written down earlier.

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So he was able to bring them to mind. And I myself find if I make notes to something,

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I'm far more likely to remember. And that's why I take notes in here, not so much that I, yeah, so much that I forget,

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I was gonna say, but if I take notes, somehow it seems to cement some things into my mind a little bit better.

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Of course, I don't know if I can really call what I have in mind, but I use it for that. So Daniel took those notes and then later on recorded them.

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The subsequent verses that detail the dream are actually only a summary of all that he dreamt.

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Note also that Daniel names a specific time which permanently roots this vision as happening in the 6th century

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BC. Contrary to the critics who would say Daniel was written in the 2nd century BC, Daniel leaves no room for that.

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He roots it in at the 6th century BC. It was King of Babylon, Belshazzar.

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That's when he had the dream. Now, those who would say this was written in the 2nd century would have

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Belshazzar 400 years out of place, easily. Chapter seven, verse two,

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Daniel said, oh, are there any questions? So there are many of you in here

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I know who have spent more time studying prophecy than I have, and I welcome your comments.

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Unless you disagree with me, then shut up. Not at all.

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Verse two, Daniel chapter seven, verse two. Daniel said, I was looking in my vision by night and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea.

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In this vision, in this vision, some of the things

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Daniel saw are symbols. The four winds of heaven symbolized the chaotic conditions that characterize the nations of the world.

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You think? How many nations do we have that are just quiet and subdued and pacific, not the ocean, and polite to one another and get along and don't need any mediation?

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Yeah, that's what I thought. They also, this vision also, it symbolizes the power that God exerts on the nations.

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The sea is often used symbolically representing the world of nations. Isaiah chapter 17, verse 12 and 13.

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Alas, the uproar of many peoples who roar now, who roar like the roaring of the seas, and the rumbling of nations who rush on like the rumbling of mighty waters.

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The nations rumble on like the rumbling of many waters, but he will rebuke them and they will flee far away and be chased like chaff in the mountains before the wind or like whirling dust before a gate.

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Revelation 17, one. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bulls came and spoke with me and saying, come here,

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I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters. And then Revelation 17, 15.

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And he wrote and he said to me, the waters which you saw where the harlot sits are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.

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So symbolism abounds in this section. Now here begins the detailed chronology of the end times with which

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Daniel is most concerned. Chapters one through six are considered by both conservative and other scholars, liberal scholars, as being the first half of the book and is general in tone with few specific stories.

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Chapters seven through 12 is more specific with its series of visions and historical references to world rulers and kingdoms.

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Culver, in his commentary, separates Daniel into three sections, the first section being an introduction in Daniel chapter one and the second section, chapters two through seven, being the times of the

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Gentiles and which is written in Aramaic. In the third section, which details Israel's relationship to the

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Gentiles, written in Hebrew, chapters eight through 12. And that's fine. Whoops, technology got ahead of me there.

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In any event, no matter how you divide it, we are heading into the part of the book that is most controversial and is also very encouraging and exciting, as all of God's word is.

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So before we go any further, as I did in this first time I introduced this, I want to revisit the issue of Daniel being an historically correct book.

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Actually, I didn't go into this. This is something that was for the next session, which would have been the 21st of November, but Rick took over then.

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So we're gonna revisit the issue of Daniel not being a historically correct book. For this is the crux of the issue that leads to the idea that Daniel was a second century

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BC author rather than sixth century BC. Other critics assail the idea that Daniel was incorrect in his statements that have historical import.

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One of the more egregious charges made was that Daniel could not have been a sixth century BC writer because he got history wrong.

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This was early on when there seemed to be no record of Belshazzar, many years ago, but I think prior to 1920, when some of the more important discoveries about King Belshazzar were made.

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The idea was that Daniel did not properly arrange the history and the lines of the kings of Babylon, Medo -Persia, and it's dealt with.

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The simple fact is that Daniel was a careful historian and most certainly had access to volumes that no longer exist, which informed his understanding of the histories involved.

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One man put it this way. He said, one of the worst errors of modern critics is in their supposing that one can posit the sources from which a writer who lived 2000 or more years ago must have derived his information.

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The complacence and self -assurance with such a knowledge of such sources as assumed might be dismissed with a smile, were it not that these suppositions are often put forward as arguments to prove a proposition, the proposition that Daniel was wrong, that Daniel didn't know his history.

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It seems marvelous that anyone today should fail to recognize that the ancient writers of history, whether sacred or profane, had access to many documentary sources that have long since ceased to exist.

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Many of these writers claim that they use such sources. Thus, in the introduction to his exposition of Alexander, Adrian says that he used, he made use of the words of Ptolemy, the first king of Egypt, and of Aristobulus, both of whom accompanied

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Alexander on his campaign, and also of many others whose names he does not mention.

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Josephus, in his treatise, Contraepion, gives the names of about 40 historians of different nations from whom he culled his statements.

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And he asserts again and again that a large part of the material used by him had been derived either by himself or by authorities directly from written officials whose records were possessed by the

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Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Tyrians, and the Jews. Polybius gives the names of more than 20 historians from whom he derived his facts.

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Pliny the Younger, in the first book of his natural history, gives the names of the sources of each book that follows.

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For the fifth book, which contains his account of Palestine, he mentions the names of 60 historians and others from whom he derived his information.

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And for the whole 37 books, he had named hundreds of authorities. It is noteworthy also that neither of the historians named as the sources of Arian is mentioned by either

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Josephus, Polybius, or Pliny, and that each of these three last given names, names among their sources, the names of some who are not apparently used by others.

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So they had access to books that no longer exist, historical books, libraries that have burned down, cities that were conquered, and the conquerors destroyed the works.

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They had access to these. Now, remember, I am not placing any more reliance on these than I am on Scripture.

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The point is is that today when people make accusations that so -and -so couldn't have known his history, it's usually made stupidly, if not always made stupidly, because we have no idea what kinds of sources they had 2 ,600 years ago.

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A few more things about this. Furthermore, both

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Polybius and Josephus affirmed that they themselves had access to and frequently consulted official records that had been preserved to their time.

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And Josephus reiterates the fact that his chief authorities made use of the archives of the respective countries whose histories they had written.

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So he had access to the history books of the countries that he was talking about.

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Thus, of Manetho, he says that he was a man who was by birth an Egyptian, yet he had made himself master of the

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Greek learning, as is very evident, for he wrote the history of his own country in the Greek tongue by translating it, as he says himself, out of the sacred records.

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Of Dias, he says that he was, quote, "'One that is believed to have written "'the Phoenician history after an accurate manner.'"

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And of Menander the Ephesian, that he wrote the acts that were done by the Greeks and the barbarians under every one of the

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Syrian kings and had taken much pains to learn their history out of their own records. Of Berossus, he says that he was by birth a

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Chaldean, well known to the learned, on account of his publication among the Greeks of the Chaldean books of astronomy and philosophy.

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This Berossus, therefore, following the most ancient records of the nations, gives us a history. Moreover, many other eminent authors who wrote in the

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Greek language were known to Josephus, such as Zephyrus, 400 to 330 BC. Theopompus, that's an interesting name, 380 to 330

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BC. Hecataeus, 6th and 5th century BC. Herodotus, 464 to 424

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BC. And Thucydides, 471 to 400 BC. A certain Castor also is named by him as one of his authorities, a man so utterly unknown to the classical writers that his name given is not even given in Adele and Scott's Greek dictionary, in the

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Encyclopedia Britannica nor in classical dictionaries. All this just to say that Daniel, most certainly, being the astute man of God and scholar that he was, had access to lots of information that is no longer in existence.

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Imagine if the Smithsonian was destroyed today. Now, in our society, we have computer backup on stuff, on many things.

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But just imagine if there was an attack on this country and the victors who wanted to make monuments to themselves, and one of those monuments is the history of the attack and subjugation of a nation.

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They destroyed all the existing information so that 300 or 1 ,000 years from now, people would read about the destruction of the

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United States, and it might very well be very different from what actually happened. But at some point, all those histories existed and people wrote from them.

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That's what this is pointing out. Daniel was an accurate scholar. He had access to information that we don't have access, but more importantly, he had

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God. Yes, Rick? Yes, I do.

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Most of the great nations in the past, the question was, do you think the king might have had a library? Most, if not all, of those nations had libraries.

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We actually read about the libraries and some archeological expeditions are exciting because they find a library.

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They find, underneath this and underneath that tell, they find a room that is full of information.

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Now, a lot of it is in poor shape, but enough of it is there to reconstruct much of what happened during that time.

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This would have been, Daniel would have had access to the libraries of Babylon and neighboring countries.

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He was a government employee and he traveled. He was probably given authority to travel and he was in charge.

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Remember, he was second in charge of the entire nation. So he would have represented Nebuchadnezzar to other countries regularly.

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He would have been in those countries and probably had great access to their written volumes. So at any rate,

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I just wanted to dispel the notion that Daniel was a poor scholar. He was a fabulous scholar, but he also had

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God himself to give him this information. The point of fact is that ancient writers had at their disposal sources that very likely do not exist today.

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Daniel would have had access to the written histories of the countries and nations that came before him.

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He would have had access to the great libraries of the day, to answer your question, to information about adjacent nations and even distant nations.

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His histories are correct and they comport to what we know, but more important, they are scripturally sound.

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Any questions about that? So, libraries are important.

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Chapter... Yes, to...

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I couldn't hear you. We will be going through that one at a time, one verse at a time, yeah.

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But thanks for the question. Yes, correct, correct.

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So how it relates is, as the critics attack Daniel for not being a 6th century BC writer, prophesying these things, but rather being a 2nd century

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BC writer, writing the history, whenever Daniel tags something from the 6th century

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BC, I was simply making the point, we can trust that he had information that we do not have for historical statements, not for prophetic statements.

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God gives him the prophecy, but he is anchored into his time so that what he says is indeed prophecy.

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When we go from the next, well, the rest of the chapter, pretty much, it is not history, it is prophecy.

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He lived in the 6th century BC and these kingdoms were still to come, is the point

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I was making. Does that make sense? Okay. So verse 3, now he's gonna talk about what's going to happen.

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And four great beasts were coming up from the sea, different from one another. The parallels to Nebuchadnezzar's vision in chapter 2 will be noted as we go, but it should be apparent at the outset that the tone of each is different.

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Nebuchadnezzar, a pagan, visualized the succeeding great empires of man as glorious and represented by different kinds of valuable minerals and metals.

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Daniel, a man of God, has a different view. The succeeding nations are represented by rapacious beasts and their destruction is chronicled.

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In chapter 2, Daniel is the interpreter. Here in chapter 7, an angel is the interpreter. The detail here is significantly greater than in chapter 2.

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So critics have attacked this section of Daniel repeatedly and doggedly. Throughout the millennia, it has been revealed clearly that critical attacks are based on artificial criteria more often than not, and are more often than not completely subjective.

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Conservative biblical scholars, however, see it as a key to God's program from Babylon to the second coming of Christ.

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When read and understood in context, it is a magnificent prophecy that demonstrates

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God's omniscience and gives him great glory. The charge that this section was originally written in Hebrew and later changed to Aramaic has no basis in history.

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There's nothing that suggests that, and is simply based on the idea that Daniel, the book, is a forgery.

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In dealing with the Gentile world, it is natural that this book would be written in the language of the day, in the language of the government, in the language of the people, which was

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Aramaic. So the four great beasts represent, as we will see, the successive empires of Babylon, Medo -Persia,

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Greece, and Rome. The sea actually represents the great mass of humanity, always boiling and entombed.

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Daniel makes it clear that there are four beasts and that they are all different from one another. This establishes that the ruling dynasties that are represented here were at odds with each other and were different.

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Any questions about that? Comments? Verse four. The first was like a lion and had the wings of an eagle.

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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.

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A human mind also was given to it. So this beast represents the kingdom of Babylon in Daniel's time.

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Winged lions were one of the main symbols of Babylon, as was the eagle. Its ability was reduced by the plucking of the wings and then it was made into the similitude of a man.

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This follows the life and actions of Nebuchadnezzar. As Daniel watched in his dream, this seemed to be a fleshing out of what happened to Nebuchadnezzar in chapter two.

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The plucking of the wings seems to be reminiscent of the humiliation of Nebuchadnezzar before the sovereign

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God. During the interim of Nebuchadnezzar's insanity, he seems not to have had the mind of a man.

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His mind was given back to him and the last phrase in this verse is reminiscent of that. Other scriptures compare

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Nebuchadnezzar to both a lion and an eagle. You wanna move to the next one?

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Anyway, Jeremiah 4 .7, a lion has gone up from his thicket and a destroyer of nations has set out.

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He has gone from his place to make your land a waste. Your cities will be ruins without inhabitant. Jeremiah 49 .9,

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behold, one will come up like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan against a perennially wasted pasture, watered pasture.

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Let me reread that. Behold, one will come up like a lion from the thickets of the

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Jordan against a perennially wasted, watered pasture. For in an instant, I will make him run away from it and whoever is chosen,

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I shall appoint over it. For who is like me and who will summon me into court? Who then is the shepherd who can stand against me?

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Jeremiah 50 .7, Israel is a scattered flock.

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The lions have driven them away. The first one who devoured him was the king of Assyria and this last one who has broken his bones is

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Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Jeremiah 50 .44, behold, one will come up like a lion from the thicket of the

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Jordan to a perennial, I just read that one, to a perennially watered pasture. For in an instant, I will make them run away from it and whoever is chosen,

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I will appoint over it for who is like me and who will summon me into court. And who then is the shepherd who can stand before me?

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Verse, chapter 49, verse 22. Behold, he will mound up and swoop like an eagle and spread out his wings against Basra and the hearts of the mighty men of Edom in that day will be like the heart of a woman in labor.

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Lamentations 4, 19. Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the sky. They chased us on the mountains.

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They waited in ambush for us in the wilderness. Ezekiel 17 .3, saying, thus says the

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Lord God, a great eagle with great wings, long pinions and a full plumage of many colors came to Lebanon and took away the top of the cedar.

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And Habakkuk 1 .8, their horses are swifter than leopards and keener than wolves in the evening. Their horsemen come galloping, their horsemen come from afar.

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They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour. So common, these animals were commonly used to depict rapacious nations.

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Chapter seven, verse five. And behold, another beast, a second one resembling a bear.

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And it was raised up on one side and three ribs were in its mouth between its teeth and they said to it, arise, devour much meat.

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So with an insatiable desire to conquer everything and its path in front of it, the Medo -Persian

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Empire is represented here. The bear was considered a voracious, powerful animal in ancient times.

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This directly corresponds to the land hungry Medo -Persians. Further, the bear corresponds to the torso and arms of silver in Nebuchadnezzar's vision.

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Critics ascribe the bear simply to the Medians with no reference to the Persian element. They strike out the

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Persian element and just ascribe it to the bear, some critics do. The simple fact is though that there was never a time when the

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Median Empire ever ruled individually over any part of the ancient Near East. The history that Herodotus wrote clearly indicates that Cyrus conquered the

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Medes. If you wanna read that, it's online. It's in Herodotus 1 .30. It's quite a long read here, so I'll leave that out.

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And that the Medo -Persians themselves conquered Babylon. And I think you just, what

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I did is I just typed in his name and conquering of Babylon and it brought up that section. So if you wanna read that, it's very instructive.

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Herodotus' history is. This is the story of the birth and upbringing of Cyrus and how he became king and afterwards, as I've already related, how he subjugated

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Croesus in punishment for the unprovoked wrong done him and after this victory, he became sovereign of all

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Asia. That's that section of Herodotus talked about here. Thus, the conquering of the Medes by Persia and their subsequent melding together precludes the idea of the liberal scholars that the bear represents the

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Medes only. The bear was considered a powerful animal in ancient times, second only to the lion in power.

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They were also considered slow and ungainly. The beast mentioned in Revelation 13, verse two, received his power from the dragon, that received his power from the dragon is said to have had the feet of a bear.

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The bear also said to have been raised up on one side. There are a number of observations about this.

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Was it rising up on its hind legs? Was it laying down with one paw lifted up? One theory is that this was referring to a physical abnormality resulting from one side being more dominant than the other, the

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Persian ascendancy over the Medes in their alliance. The best that scholars have come up with is the idea that this represents the one -sided union of the

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Persian and Median empires. Though later in time, historically, Persia was far more powerful than the

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Medes and conquered them. We see this also in chapter eight, when we get there, represented by the two horns of the ram with the last being greater and higher.

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The ram there was identified as the kings of Media and Persia in Daniel chapter eight, verse 20.

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This view also accepts the facts of history as they have played out. Keep that in mind. The three ribs in the bear's mouth have been represented as Media, Persia, and Babylon, which were the three major components of the

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Medo -Babylonian empire. A more likely interpretation is that the three ribs represent the

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Medo -Persian conquests of Lydia, Babylon, and Egypt. This makes the bear a symbol of government and conquest, and the three ribs are those countries, nations, that were subdued by the

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Medo -Persian empire. It has been observed that this prophecy accurately shows the character and history of the

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Medo -Persian empire, which began in Daniel's time and continued for 200 years until Alexander the

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Great in 336 BC. Historically, the rule in these ancient times went from Assyria to Babylon in 612

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BC, from Babylon to Medo -Persian in 539 BC, and from Medo -Persian to Greece in 331

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BC. And we'll look later on the change from Medo -Persia to Rome. Any questions about that?

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We're gonna close out here. So as we're reading, and I guess if you have an assignment,

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I don't give assignments, but just read Daniel chapter seven several times, and maybe look into Matthew chapter 25 and Revelation chapter 13,

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Revelation 20, and make some comparisons on your own. We're going to be looking at the play out in history of these empires as they succeeded one another, keeping in mind that when the

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Lord Jesus Christ conquers and ends them, it will be instantaneous. It won't be a slow succession, it will be an ending.

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Boom, and he will come and rule. Let's pray. Let's pray. Thank you,

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Lord, for this interesting and incredible book. Help us to be careful in our understanding of it, not to go too short or too far in anything we look into it and receive from it.

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We pray that it will deepen our love for the Lord Jesus Christ and our awe of your majesty and sovereignty over every single aspect of history, from the very beginning until the very end, when you will be displayed as the sovereign ruler of the universe, and we look forward to that time.