Daniel in Exile Part 4

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word, we ask through your Holy Spirit to help us to understand what you have revealed there, especially as we walk through some very difficult apocalyptic texts.

We pray that you would teach us how to rightly understand these texts so that we may take great comfort in the message that is there.

We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Coughing right there at the end.

That's loads of fun. Okay. So we are about to embark into the fun portion of the book of Daniel.

And by fun, I mean really complicated, legitimately difficult to understand.

And I need to make a statement kind of at the front end of all of this.

And that is that this section of Daniel, and I would include also in it

Nebuchadnezzar's original dream. These are a primer to learn how to understand eschatological and apocalyptic texts.

And the best way I can give you as like an example of what it is that I'm talking about here.

If I were to drop in to the gospel of Matthew chapter 13, and we'll note that if you look at this text and remember the greater context,

Jesus in chapter 12 has just been accused of healing people and casting out demons by virtue of the fact that apparently

Jesus is operating in the power of Beelzebul. They're claiming that yeah, yeah, yeah,

Jesus is performing miracles, but he's doing it by the power of Satan himself, right? And so Jesus at this point changes it up.

In the opening portion of Matthew all the way through chapter 12, Jesus teaches plainly.

Chapter 13, he throws a zinger. And the zinger is he starts to preach and teach in parables.

And we'll walk through this and you'll see what I'm saying. So at that same day, Jesus went out of the house, sat beside the sea.

Great crowds gathered about him so that he got into a boat and sat down. The whole crowd stood on the beach.

He told them many things in parables saying, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path.

The birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground where they did not have much soil.

Immediately they sprang up since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away.

Other seeds fell among the thorns. The thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Now, verse nine proves that Jesus, the seeds that were being sown, that's corn because of the ears.

Never mind. Pastor jokes. Pastor jokes.

All right. But note here, the disciples came up and said to him, and I hate to say this, every time

I read this section of scripture and I hear the disciples in panic, I hear it in Seinfeld's voice.

Why do you speak to them in parables? All right. They are freaking out.

What? Why are you doing this in parables? Because Jesus has been speaking plainly up until this point.

And here's the reason Jesus gives. To you, it has been given to know the kingdom of heaven.

But to them, it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given and he will have an abundance.

But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables.

Because seeing, they do not see. And hearing, they do not hear.

Nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says, you will indeed hear, but never understand.

You will indeed see, but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed.

Lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.

Now, the reason why Jesus is talking in parables is so that a whole bunch of people are going to hear him talk, and they won't understand a word he's saying.

That's the point. Jesus doesn't want them to understand.

Why? Well, they just accused him of preaching, casting out demons by the power of Beelzebul.

Fine. I'm not going to preach to you out in the open anymore. We're going to fulfill Isaiah's prophecy here, and I'm going to preach, and you're going to sit there and go, huh?

What? Charlie Brown's teacher is now teaching. Right?

That's the whole point. Now, I remember when the whole rise of the so -called seeker -driven churches occurred, and if you go back way back in the archives of Fighting for the

Faith, one of the phenomenon that we noticed with the rise of seeker -driven, purpose -driven churches is they had this thing that a lot of them did, and that is during the summer months, they would do sermon series on popular blockbuster movies, all right?

And the justification that they would give for having sermons based on movies,

I guess apparently you don't need the Word of God anymore, but sermons based on movies. And the reason why is because they said, well,

Jesus was the greatest communicator ever, and Jesus liked telling stories, and so we can use movies to tell stories, because we're going to be like Jesus when we do that.

And they just sit there and go, you guys have no idea what you're talking about. Jesus communicated in parables so that people wouldn't understand.

Now, here's one of the more fascinating aspects, then, of the Gospel of Matthew, and I would even note the other

Gospels as well fall into this, but you can see it here. So, you guys remember the movie

Ferris Bueller's Day Off? All right, great movie. All right, but Ferris Bueller, he would always talk to the camera.

There's a phrase for that particular technique, and do you guys know the name of it?

Breaking the what? Breaking the fourth wall. It's called breaking the fourth wall, because you'll note that the vast majority of movies that you watch, the actors never even look into the camera.

They're not supposed to. You're just observing what's going on, but there, Ferris Bueller, he's fully aware that you're there, and he's chatting right at you, okay?

So, here's the interesting bit. Here in Matthew chapter 13, Christ is breaking the fourth wall, because what's going to happen next is, along with Jesus' disciples, you are going to be given a quick primer on how to understand the parables.

The people who Christ is condemning, who will never understand, even though they hear, it's not you.

You are going to learn, along with Jesus' disciples, how to understand a parable, and you get the inside information.

If Jesus' disciples are 12, you're the 13th. You're sitting in the fourth wall as being broken here at this point.

So, it goes on, blessed are your eyes, for they see. Blessed are your ears, for they hear.

And this is where the word of God is living and active, because who's the blessed person here? It's not merely the disciples hearing this.

It's you reading it. For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people long to see what you see and did not see it, and hear what you hear and did not hear it.

So, hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart.

And Jesus now is explaining, here's how you understand the parables. The different elements of the parables stand for something.

So, the parable is parallel to reality, and it's not that hard of a code to crack.

If you're paying attention, you can figure out how to do this pretty quick. So, when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and doesn't understand it, the evil one comes, snatches away what's been sown in his heart.

This is what is sown along the path. As for what was sown on the rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.

Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while. And when tribulation and persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.

As for what was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word, understands it.

He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, another sixty, and another thirty.

So, there is the Holy Spirit, Jesus' official, divine interpretation of the parable, and it's a master class on how to understand parables.

So, he put another parable before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field.

But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the weed and went away.

So, when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also, and the servants of the master of the house came and said to him,

Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How, then, does it have weeds? So, the servant said to him,

Well, an enemy has done this. So, the servant said to him, Well, then, do you want us to go and gather them?

He said, No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the weed along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the harvest time

I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first, bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.

Then he put another parable before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that man took and sowed in his field.

It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it is grown, it is larger than all the garden plants, becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.

Then he told them another parable, The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour till it was all leavened.

All these things Jesus said to the crowds, in parables. Indeed, he said nothing to them without a parable.

This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.

Then he left the crowds and went into the house, and his disciples came to him, saying, Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.

So, you can see the disciples are trying to work this out, okay? After the parable of the soils, now they're kind of trying to sort this all out, they're sitting there with their pencil, haven't quite got this yet.

So Jesus answered, The one who sows the good seed is the son of man, the field is the world, the good seed is the sons of the kingdom.

No, you're learning this with them. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, the enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, the reapers are angels, just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age.

So the son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all lawbreakers, throw them into the fiery furnace, in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father, he who has ears, let him hear.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who on finding one pearl of great value went and sold all that he had bought it.

And then you'll note that Jesus goes on telling these parables, and then you get to 1351.

He looks at his disciples and he says, Have you understood all these things? They said to him, yes.

So after Jesus's master class with two prime examples, where he gives the interpretation, the remainder of his parables, the disciples understand them.

So should you. Okay, so when we get to the book of Daniel, which is what we're looking at, we're going to note that Daniel chapter seven, we have a very hard turn.

Up to this point, it has been historical narrative. Now we're taking a hard turn into what is called apocalyptic literature.

Apocalypsis is the word that is used, it's a Greek word for reveal. In fact, the book of Revelation is the apocalypse of John.

That's what it's called. So when we talk about apocalypse, we always take apocalypse and we think it's about death, destruction, the end of the world, and things like this.

Granted, that in apocalyptic literature, literature that reveals great mysteries, oftentimes the subject is the end of the world.

And you'll note then that these things are sealed up. They're a serves as a primer.

And you're going to note the visions and the symbols used in the book of Daniel, they reappear in the book of Revelation.

You're going to err in your understanding of the book of Revelation if you have not been taught how to understand apocalyptic literature from Daniel.

Daniel is the place where you go to learn how to understand these things. And the great overlap and parallel between those two books is vital for a proper understanding of the book of Revelation.

It's absolutely necessary. Now, let me back up just a little bit because the primer really began in chapter two with Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

I'm not going to reread the entire account, but when God revealed the dream to Daniel, Daniel then explained the dream in detail and then gave its interpretation.

This is an apocalyptic portion, but this is just to get your feet wet. You saw,

O king, and behold, a great image. The image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you.

Its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was a fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.

As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand. It struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, broke them in pieces.

Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, the gold, all together were broken in pieces and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors.

And the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

Now the parallels between this and what we're going to read in Daniel chapter 7 are obvious once you kind of put the two texts next to each other.

So here's the interpretation. This was the dream. Now we will tell you, tell the king its interpretation.

You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory, and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them, you are the head of gold.

Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth.

And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things.

And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all of these. And as you saw the feet and toes partly of potter's clay, partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay.

And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, partly brittle.

And as you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.

And in the days of those kings, plural, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people.

It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, the gold.

A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, its interpretation is sure.

So in short, it's real simple if you kind of just think this out. You got an image, it's made of different types of metal, gold, silver, bronze, iron, partly iron, partly clay.

And it stands for the kingdoms of the earth, starting with the

Persian Empire. The bronze one is the kingdom set up by Alexander the

Great. Then you have the Roman Empire made of iron. And then all the way down into the feet, you have a mixing of Roman Empire elements in a kingdom with multiple kings, where it's

Roman Empire and clay. And then Christ is that mountain, that rock, comes, smashes them, brings it all to an end.

And we never remember Alexander or Nebuchadnezzar or any of those guys ever again. Goodbye. They're gone, right?

Pretty simple. That's your toe in the water. You are beginning to become experts at how to understand apocalyptic literature.

So no, this isn't talking about literal gold or literal silver or literal iron.

These are all symbols. These are word pictures. And so the book of Revelation itself,

I made this clear when we walked through the entire book, the book of Revelation is a series of word pictures.

And these have to be interpreted because the different things that show up have meanings that are not the surface meaning.

If you think this is all about real gold or real silver, you're missing the point. That's just describing a particular kingdom of the earth.

So when we go to Daniel chapter seven, we're going to get, I think maybe a few kingdoms again mentioned.

And now we're going to see kingdoms described in terms of kind of their mascots.

I remember when I was growing up, the San Diego Padres, they decided that it was time to have a mascot.

And they brought out the San Diego chicken. And the person behind the San Diego chicken was hilarious.

That was the funniest thing ever. But now many sports teams, they have these mascots and stuff like this.

So kind of think in those terms. So Daniel chapter seven begins in the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon.

New king is in charge, right? Daniel saw a dream, visions of his head as he lie in his bed.

Then he wrote down the dream and told the sum of the matter. Now in this particular case, we're going to note something is that this is a prophetic dream.

And Daniel knows something is significantly different about this particular dream that it needs to be written down.

And when we talk about prophets in scripture, Daniel definitely is a prophet, but we have to do a little bit of work to figure out what a prophet is and note that there are different types of prophets mentioned in scripture.

So we'll do a little excursus here. And we are going to go to the book of Exodus. And remember when

Moses was being commissioned by God for the purpose of going to Pharaoh to tell

Pharaoh, let my people go. Okay. Um, if, if purpose -driven theology were really true and it's not, this would be the text to go to except for here's the thing.

Um, Moses isn't keen on the idea and says, send someone else. Okay. Here he's experiencing his

God given purpose and Moses legitimately says, I don't want to do it. Okay.

So here though, in this text, we're going to see an interesting theology layout as far as a proper understanding of what a prophet is, which is all the more reason why anybody claiming to be one today.

Uh, and you're going to see, as we work through the book of Daniel, prophecy itself is said by God, actually the angel

Gabriel to come to a close no earlier than 70

AD, no later than one 30. It's actually sealed, but here's what a prophet is.

So Moses said to Yahweh, Oh my Lord, I am not eloquent either in past or since that you have spoken to your servant.

I'm slow of speech and of tongue. I don't want to do it. Yahweh said to him, well, who has made man's mouth?

Who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, Yahweh?

Now therefore go, I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak. Okay. Note here,

Moses in Deuteronomy 18 is explicitly said to be a prophet. And in that prophecy in Deuteronomy 18,

God will raise up a prophet like Moses. Moses is a prophet. So already we're beginning to see, get an idea of what a prophet is.

One who has words given to them directly by God. But he said,

Oh my Lord, please send someone else. Then the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Moses.

Be careful what you say next, Moses. And he said, all right.

Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well.

Behold, he's coming out to meet you. And when he sees you, he'll be glad in his heart. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth.

And I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do.

He shall speak for you to the people and he shall be your mouth and you shall be as God to him and take in your hand the staff with which you shall do the signs.

So if you were really kind of boil it down, a true prophet is one who has been given words by God.

He is actually speaking on behalf of God himself and the words that he speaks, he's speaking as a messenger and he doesn't have the right to add to or take away from those words, but he is legitimately speaking as God's representative.

And the words that he speaks are from God, which is all the more reason why anyone claiming to be a prophet today must have the source tested, because if God is really speaking through any of today's wingnut, wackerdoodle prophets, we are bound, duty bound to listen and to heed and to obey those words.

A true prophet is one who speaks words from God. Now, you'll note then in the

Old Testament, God speaks to Moses face to face. Moses is unlike many of the other prophets.

The other prophets, oftentimes they are seers, they see visions, or the word of the

Lord comes to them. And you'll note then that in this case with Daniel, Daniel is given a prophetic dream and he writes down the vision, he writes down the dream, and it's recorded in scripture because the origin of the dream is

God himself. The reason why Daniel was given this dream is so that he would write it down, he would add it to this book, and this book now speaks to us.

Now, one of the things that, I'll bring this up, we'll go over here real quick. Revelation chapter one.

If I were to tell you we have prophets, we have prophets speaking to us today, right?

It's true. You can follow along. Let me give you an example. Revelation, the

Revelation, the apocalypse of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place.

He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God, to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this, what? Prophecy.

And blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

So when we talk about prophets and prophecy here, you're going to note I am a firm believer we as Christians need to hear prophecy, right?

Is not John the apostle prophesying to us when we read the book of Revelation?

You betcha. The Bible is the living, active word of God.

These are not dead words. How many of you can say that the apostle

Paul has had no influence on you at all regarding your discipleship as a

Christian? Who of you can say, Matthew? Nah, I've never heard of him. I don't even know who you're talking about.

How about Peter? Yeah, I might have heard about that guy. Have not John and Peter and Matthew and Paul had a profound impact on your understanding of true versus false doctrine?

Are they not teaching you now? Isn't the church built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets?

Now, there's a distinction then we have to make, and we have to make this very carefully, okay?

I believe that we are being taught by apostles and prophets today.

In fact, what do we confess in the creed? I believe in one holy Catholic, it's universal, sorry,

Catholic and apostolic church. Do we not confess our belief in an apostolic church, okay?

And then also, the Holy Spirit, who spoke by the what? Prophets. So you'll note that in the creed, we mention apostles and prophets, and so I can't say that the apostles are dead, nor can

I say that the prophets are dead. Because what does God say regarding Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?

What does Christ say? He says this to the Sadducees, these poor fellows, they don't even believe in the resurrection, that's the reason they're sad, you see?

Anyway, so they don't believe in the resurrection, and so Jesus says to them, regarding the resurrection,

God says, I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He's the God of the living, not the dead, all right?

So I believe in living apostles. They don't live on planet earth. I believe in living prophets.

They don't live on planet earth, they're in the presence of Christ. And God, the

Holy Spirit, has taken the messages that he has given to these fellows, and had them write them down in the living, active word of God.

So when we talk about apostles and prophets, Daniel is a prophet. It is unmistakable, but it's important as we're reading through his prophecies that we understand kind of the mechanism of how this all works.

So you all can go from here and let everybody know, man, I had no idea that Roseborough was talking about living prophets.

Man, we were reading one of the living prophets today at God's finger, right?

Really? Who does he say is a living prophet? Daniel. Well, he's dead. No, he's not.

He is quite alive, okay? And his words are now in scripture, the living, active word of God.

So note here, this is one of the major issues regarding the so -called restoration of apostles and prophets today, is they don't need to be restored.

They don't need to be restored at all. The apostles teach us all. They continue to teach us. The prophets, they still teach us.

And these are the prophecies that each and every generation, since they've been written, have been invited by God to wrestle and work their way through, all right?

So Daniel says, I saw in my vision by night and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea.

All right, so now what sea are we talking about here? Some commentators will say, well, this could potentially be the

Mediterranean. I don't think that's a satisfactory answer. When you see the great sea, the turmoil, the chaos, and stuff like this, this is more or less a similar kind of sea that you see in the book of Revelation.

This is not a particular place on planet earth. He's talking about some great sea in his vision.

Four great beasts came out of the sea different from one another, okay?

The first was like a lion and it had eagle's wings. Then as I looked, its wings were plucked off.

It was lifted up from the ground, made to stand on two feet like a man and the mind of a man was given to it.

And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear. It was raised up on one side.

It had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth and it was told to rise, devour much flesh.

After this, I looked and behold, another like a leopard with four wings of a bird on its back. And the beast had four heads and dominion was given to it.

And after this, I saw in the night visions and behold, a fourth beast. Terrifying, dreadful, exceedingly strong.

It had great iron teeth. That's cue you in on a few things.

It devoured and broken pieces. It stamped what was left with its feet.

It was different from all the beasts that were before it. It had 10 horns and I considered the horns and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots.

And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things.

Does that sound familiar to any of you guys? Should sound familiar, right? All right, so what are we talking about here?

Okay, beast number one, lion with wings. I don't know, maybe it's dealing with like Babylon, okay?

So you'll note here, that's a lion with wings. That's the mascot for the

Babylonian Empire, somehow related to the goddess Ishtar. But there it is, a lion with wings, okay?

What comes after the Persian Empire? Media, sorry, after the Babylonian Empire, you have the

Media -Persian Empire, right? Then after that, you have a leopard with how many heads?

Four. All right, so Alexander the Great, when he dies, his exploits, his kingdom, if you would, his empire that he built, is chopped up into how many pieces?

Four. Four, right? Four. So hang on a second here.

Alexander the Great, four generals. All right, let's do a little bit of work here.

So if I remember my history correctly, there were four four generals of Alexander's, that upon his quite early and sudden demise, they break up his kingdom.

Alexander the Great World History Encyclopedia, let's see here. Let's see here.

Look at that, interesting stuff here. So there's Alexander the Great. That's a depiction of what he would have looked like now.

Man, not a woman on planet Earth who wouldn't want to date him. That's what I looked like when I was 18.

Okay, I wish. Okay, let's see here.

Ancient world. Okay, map of Alexander the Great's conquest, the India Mutiny.

Let's see if they talk about the breakup. No, all right, hang on a second here. Four generals, map.

All right, let's do a little bit of work here. Okay, let's see here. Seleucid.

Oh, there we go. This is going to be helpful. It's opening a

PDF. Oh, come on. Here we go. Okay. Okay, so you got the

Ptolemies. You got the Seleucids. We'll just call him

Linus. Lysimachus and Cassander. Those are the four breakups, right?

Each of them gets a piece of the puzzle, and that's how things get broken up. So Alexander the

Great's kingdom now has four heads. That's unique in human history, and you'll note this prophecy was long before Alexander the

Great. But what's really interesting, really interesting, read Josephus.

All right, Josephus actually has some pretty interesting bits in his Jewish histories that are absolutely worth the read.

But in Josephus' Jewish histories, he talks about when Alexander the

Great's army shows up outside the gates of Jerusalem, all right?

And Alexander the Great, if you know his history, he wasn't exactly keen on not conquering places, okay?

So what they did, his armies are out there, they asked for a parley, and it was the high priest himself who came out in his ephod, dressed in his white vestments.

He comes out with the scroll of Daniel, and Roseborough's paraphrase of what the high priest basically said, ah, we've been expecting you, okay?

And he said, you were prophesied by Daniel, and so we're not gonna fight you, we're gonna surrender to you, we've been expecting you.

And Alexander does not conquer Jerusalem. Jerusalem basically is spared the sword as a result of all of this.

And I do find it fascinating that the high priest knew well enough to be able to read Daniel and go, that's talking about this guy, okay?

So keep that in mind, you know, there's some really interesting stuff here. So we've got the, okay, so we got the four beasts, all right?

So we got one that's clearly Babylon, and you'll note the interesting thing about the

Babylonian one, a lion with the wings, has its wings plucked, it's raised up, and given the mind of a man.

Well, what happened to Nebuchadnezzar, right? He was made like an animal, and then he was risen up and given the mind of a man, which talks about his conversion and his belief in the one true

God. And then, you know, so there's some great stuff here. The media Persian empire, let's just say that that's what we're talking about, is the bear on its side, and it's got ribs between its teeth, so it kind of rose up and was picking apart what was left of the

Babylonian empire and devoured them. So the beast with four heads, that's

Alexander the Great's kingdom, and then the Seleucids and the Ptolemies and the rest that follow after.

But then you got this terrifying, dreadful, exceedingly strong beast. Pay attention, pay really close attention, because this one sounds a lot like one from the book of Revelation.

Let me explain, okay?

I saw a beast rising out of the sea, book of Revelation chapter 13.

Ten horns, seven heads, ten diadems on its horns, and blasphemous names on its head.

And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet like a bear's, its mouth like a lion's mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power, his throne, and his great authority.

So here's the thing, these apocalyptic images, they build off of each other.

So this terrifying beast, this fourth one that isn't like any of the others, what is it?

This is one of the mega weapons created by the devil for the purpose of destroying the church.

Context on this is vital. So let me back up and you'll see what

I'm saying. Revelation chapter 12. Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon.

And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.

With Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension, Satan has no ability to continue to accuse the saints, all right?

With Christ's incarnation, his death, his resurrection, and ascension, all the sins of the world are atoned for.

Can Satan accuse you of anything? Not a thing, okay? The whole record of death that stood against us has been canceled, nailed to the cross, and so Satan is thrown out of heaven.

He no longer has the ability that he had that we see taking place in the book of Job, where he shows up in heaven, right?

So the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent who's called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, that's what he is.

He was thrown down to earth and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our

God and the authority of his Christ have come. For the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down.

He accuses them day and night before our God. Amen. We cannot be accused. So they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they love not their lives even unto death.

Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them, but woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short.

Oh, goody. Now he's really upset.

Not fun. Next picture. When the dragon saw that he'd been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.

This is the ancient church that gives birth to the Messiah. That's what this is a picture of in the earlier part of 12.

You have this woman who gives birth to the Messiah, and it's not Mary that's being described here.

It's actually the church. So Revelation 12 .1, a great sign appeared in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head was a crown of 12 stars.

That invokes the prophecy of Joseph, one of the dreams of Joseph, where his parents are described as the sun and the moon, and his brother's the stars, and they all bow down to him.

That's a picture of the Old Testament church. She was pregnant, was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.

Another sign appeared in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon with seven heads, ten horns on his head, seven diadems.

His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, cast them to the earth, and the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child, he might devour it.

She gave birth to a male child, one who's to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne.

And the woman fled into the wilderness where she has been placed, a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1260 days.

Again, when you see numerical values in the book of Revelation, the number isn't the thing.

It's what it represents. So we see then the church flees into the wilderness.

God's going to care for the church for a time. So the dragon, pretty upset at this point, he decides to pursue the woman who had given birth to the male child, but the woman was given the two wings of a great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, time and half a time.

The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman to sweep her away with a flood, but the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth.

Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

And he stood on the sand of the sea. So the devil is a little bit on the angry side, and guess who he's waging war against?

Y 'all, okay? So the Old Testament church is now with Christ. We are her offspring.

We are the children of, we are the church itself now. We hold to the testimony of Jesus. We keep the commands of God, and the devil is going to make two big weapons for the purpose of destroying the church.

Now we come back. That's our context. I saw a beast rising out of the sea. Ah, just like Daniel, right?

Ten horns, seven heads, ten diadems on its horns, blasphemous names on its heads, and the beast

I saw was like a leopard, its feet like a bear's, its mouth like a lion's.

Huh, this sounds kind of like a global thing. It has bits and pieces of all of the ancient kingdoms of the earth all rolled into it, and to it the dragon gave his power, his throne, and his great authority.

Now, don't let those words pass you by. The dragon gave his power, his throne, and his great authority.

This reminds me of another text. Okay, let me see if I can put this one down real quick.

I want a Greek text though. We'll go to Jude. There we go. All right, Matthew chapter four.

Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry.

The tempter came to him and said, if you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. The answer is written, man should not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Then the devil took him to the holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple, said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

Jesus said to him again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. Again the devil took him to a very high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, all these

I will give to you if you will fall down and worship me. Jesus said, be gone

Satan. It is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. So this beast that comes up is conjured by the dragon.

The dragon gave his power and his throne and his great authority. All the things he was offering to Jesus are offered to this thing.

Yeah, more than us.

Yeah, a lot. And you'll note that we're not capable of freeing ourselves.

So let me, we'll end with this thought. The question was, how much authority does the devil have?

Colossians 1 kind of hints at it in a positive way towards us though.

Let me find it. Here we go. Paul writing to the church at Colossae.

He says, so from the day we heard we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power in accordance with his might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the father, and watch the phrase here, giving thanks to God the father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

He, the father, he has delivered us from the domain or the dominion of darkness, transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins.

Let's just put it this way. Satan's power is so strong that every human being is born under the dominion of darkness and it takes the power of God to transfer us from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of light.

We have no power to do that in and of ourselves. So whatever Satan's authority is, it's pretty way up there, greater than ours.

So all right, that's our primer for today. Tune in next week as we try to figure out more about what's going on in the book of Daniel, but that's the beginning of our stuff here.

All right, peace to you brothers and sisters. Happy, still merry Christmas to you and a happy new year and Lord willing we'll see you next time.