Daniel 7

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How about you, Spectacles? Sure. Father God, thank
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You that we can come together today to study Your Word. I pray that You be with Mike, that as he explains it that he has clarity of mind and that You open our hearts and minds to what it is that You have us learn today in Christ's name.
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Amen. Amen. Daniel 7. Y 'all do remember the order in which we're going in, correct?
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Does anybody remember? You want me to write it again? 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8.
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1, 3, 4, 7, 8, then 5, 6, and 9, 3, 12.
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That's the chronology. Is that right? Yeah. Not 56.
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Alright, let's read the chapter. And this is cool because we actually see
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Christ in clear view in this chapter. It says,
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Now the first year of Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions in his mind as he lay on his bed, and then he wrote the dream down and relayed the following summary of it.
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Daniel said, But I was looking in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea, and the four great beasts were coming out from the sea, different from another.
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The first was like a lion, and it had wings of an eagle. And I kept looking until the wings were plucked, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a human mind also was given to it.
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And, behold, another beast, a second one, resembled a bear. And it was raised up on one side, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth.
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And thus they said to it, Arise, devour much meat. After this
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I kept looking, and, behold, another one, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird, and the beast also had four heads, and the dominion was given to it.
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After this I kept looking in the night vision, and, behold, a fourth beast. It was dreadful, terrifying, extremely strong, and it had large iron teeth, and it devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet.
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And it was different from all the other beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. While I was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little horn, came up from among them.
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And three of the first horns were pulled up by the roots before it, and, behold, the horn possessed its eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth uttering great boasts.
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But I kept looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days took his seat.
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His vesture was like snow, and hair of his head was like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames, its wheels were burning fire, and a river of fire was flowing and coming out from before him where thousands upon thousands were attending at him, and myriads upon myriads were standing before him, and the court was set.
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And, behold, the books were opened, and I kept looking, because the sound of the boastful words which the horn was speaking, and I kept looking until the beast were slain, and its body was destroyed.
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It was given to the burning fire, and as for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but an extension of their life was granted for them for an appointed period of time.
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And I kept looking in the night vision, and, behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming.
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And he came up to the Ancient of Days, and he was presented before him, and to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all the peoples and nations of 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 never 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 was standing by, and began asking him the exact meaning of all this.
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So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of these things. These great beasts, which are four in number, and four kings will arise from the earth, but the saints of the
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Most High 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, which devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet, and the meaning of its ten horns that were on its head, and the horn which came up and before which three of them fell, namely, that horn which had the eyes of a mouth uttering great boast and which was larger in appearance than its associates.
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I kept looking, and the horn was waging war with the saints, overpowering them until the
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Ancient of Days came, and judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the Most High and the
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Highest One. And the time arrived when the saints took possession of the kingdom. Thus He said,
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The fourth kingdom will be the fourth kingdom on the earth, which will be different from all the other kingdoms, and it will devour the whole earth, it will tread it down, and it will crush it.
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And as for the ten horns, out of these kingdoms ten kings will arise, and another will arise after them, and it will be different than the previous ones, and will subdue three kings, and He will speak out against the
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Most High, and wear down the saints of the Most High, and He will intend to make alterations in times and law, and they will be given into His hand for a time, a times, and a half a time.
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But the court will sit for judgment, and His dominion will be taken away, annihilated and destroyed forever, and then the sovereignty, the dominion of the greatness for all the kingdoms under the whole heavens will be given to the people of the saints of the
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Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey
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Him. At this point the revelation ended, and as for me, Daniel, my thoughts were greatly alarming me, my face grew pale, and I kept the matter to myself."
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Well, this is certainly a big change from what has happened so far in the first four chapters that we have looked at.
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Daniel, so far, had been interpreting someone else's dream. This time, Daniel gets a dream, and it has to do with kings, kingdoms, world powers, and national domination.
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That's what it has to do with. And I just want you to remember when we started, the gold was who?
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Kingdom, you're right, but Babylon. What was the next one?
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Medes. I'm going to put that for the Medes and the
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Persians. What was the next?
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What was this one? Christ. This actually is a, this chapter is a parallel to the second chapter.
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Is that right? Second? Third? Anyway, one of them. This is a parallel, but the problem that we have in trying to understand this is he was interpreting someone else's dream.
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Now he gets this. He's wanting to know what's going on, and it is a parallel.
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In the book of Revelation, you have, and read while I'm saying this, you have seals, trumpets, and bowls, or some of your translations may say vials.
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They are set up as parallels, not chronological, okay?
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They're parallels, but each one of these, as the interpretation of these visions to John, they intensify, okay?
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It's called parallel progressive. That's what this is, is this here is a parallel, and now it's going to progress and give you more information than it did from the first vision that he got.
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He was just telling Nebuchadnezzar what was going on. Now God's giving him special revelation as to what's to come.
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So let's look at verse 1. In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon.
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Let's stop right there. Belshazzar was absolutely unheard of in ancient documents.
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Nobody knew who he was. The only thing that had ever been said about Belshazzar was written within Holy Scripture, and it was believed that maybe this dude was make -believe until 18,
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I think it was 1856, and they found what was called Nabonidus' cuneiform, and on Nabonidus' cuneiform, and believe it or not, it's about this big with little hieroglyphics written on it,
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Acadian writing, and it said Nabonidus was
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Belshazzar's dad, and Nabonidus said that Belshazzar reigned with him towards the middle to the end of his reign.
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So now we know that Belshazzar is a real dude. In Babylon, you had the head being, it would have not been
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Nebuchadnezzar's dad, which would have been Nebuchadnezzar. Anybody remember who came after Nebuchadnezzar?
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His name is mentioned in the book of Jeremiah. Marduk, yeah. Evil Marduk, and what did he do?
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Very significant. We overlook what he did. He released
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Jehoiachin, brought him out of being, I think he was in prison for 39 years, something like that.
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I'd have to go back and look, but he released him out. Remember, he was the one that sat on the
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Davidic throne. When Nebuchadnezzar came in, because his dad had tried to overthrow, was going to try to throw off the neck of Babylon, he killed his dad, drug him through the streets, threw his body over the wall, and then imprisoned his son so that he wouldn't try to have some retribution against Nebuchadnezzar.
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So Nebuchadnezzar dies, Evil Marduk comes to power, he's released, and he's set at the table and given an allowance and all that until the end.
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Once again, we see God's providence not squashing the Davidic seed that would sit on the
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Davidic throne. It's really interesting. Then after him, you had, I think it's
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Negrilosaur would come after him, reigned for a few years.
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After him, you had Labashi, Labashi Marduk.
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Then after him, you would have Nabonidus come to power. Nabonidus was
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Nebuchadnezzar's son, son -in -law. So he comes to power.
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He doesn't like Marduk. Marduk was the head god, okay?
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He doesn't like the head god of the Babylonians. So he decides he wants to worship the moon god,
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Sin. Y 'all see a problem with that. All the temples are made to Marduk. So he self -exiles himself for 10 years to Tima and leaves
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Belshazzar to run. He makes back and forth. He builds a palace. All this was in Babylonian history.
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Nobody really believed how true it was until they found this cuneiform, and then in Tima, they did find a small palace built to Nabonidus a number of years after the cuneiform was found.
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So it's interesting how this played out and the relevancy of the scripture was improved by history.
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We don't believe, we need that to happen. We believe that the Bible is true. It's just, once again, history proves that the
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Bible is accurate. So he exiles himself to Tima.
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Belshazzar takes the throne at this time. This probably would have been around 550 to 548, okay?
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Nabonidus had took the throne around 556, all this being BC. So how old does this make
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Daniel, roughly? Yeah, old. Yeah, late 60s, maybe early 70s.
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It has been probably 50, huh? Sorry, Jack.
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So this is from the time that he interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream, okay, to now, when he gets this dream.
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You know, this has been some 55 years, probably. 55 years.
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I don't know about y 'all, but in my mind, I go, man, what happened for those 55 years?
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Well, one, Daniel's been outliving his captors. I think that's hilarious. All right, we see
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Nebuchadnezzar's the one who enslaved him, although was very benevolent to him. But evil
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Marduk, he's outlived him. Negrilosaur, he's outlived him. Labese Marduk, he's outlived him.
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And lo and behold, we'll see in chapter 6, he's going to outlive this cat, too.
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So everybody that has been his captors, and he's been in basically their cabinet, he outlives them, and he has seen the kings come and go, seen kingdoms rise and fall under the
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Babylonian Empire, and I can't help but think, and I could be wrong, but we know that Daniel had the ear of the kings, okay,
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Babylon, that once Nebuchadnezzar died, he went to evil Marduk and says, hey, check this out.
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Your dad enslaved him, so that there would be no retribution for it.
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How about letting him out? How about letting him out? I don't know that for sure, but we do know this.
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Daniel had the ear of the kings, and they did listen to what Daniel had to say. Every one of these kings, when there was something going on, who'd they call?
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Daniel. Why? Because he had the spirit of the God with him. Well, they would say gods, but we know it was the spirit of the living
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God within him. So Belshazzar, this is in the first year of his reign or his co -regency in Babylon.
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Daniel saw a dream and visions. Once again, there is a difference between a dream and a vision, and what's the obvious thing of a dream and a vision difference?
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Yeah, that's it, obvious. I mean, he's asleep, laying on his bed. He said, there's a dream and a vision in my mind, as he lay on his bed, and he wrote the dream down and relayed the following, and here's the key word to this, summary of it.
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This is not everything that he saw. This is not everything that was relayed to him. This is not everything down to every exact detail that was given to Daniel, although I wish
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I knew that, but we don't. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he told Daniel, write a summary of it.
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And this summary is very clear. It's very obvious. As we walk through this, when we do get to the book of Revelation, you go, man, it sure would have been nice when we get to the book of Revelation if we had stuff interpreted this way for Daniel to us in Revelation of who's the actual beast or who's the ten horns or what are the locusts that are coming up out of the abyss are or are these real hailstones coming down, because it's all imagery.
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And that's what we try to do is navigate through that apocalyptic literature trying to make sense of it with the rest of Scripture.
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Well, Daniel don't have that problem. God tells him. He asks, hey, I need some help. And God says, okay, here's the people.
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So in verse 2, Daniel said, I was looking in my vision by the night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea.
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Who stirs up the winds? God. God. This is a sovereign act of God blowing across in his mind over the whole realm of all the world.
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And he blows it over the great sea. How many of you were here for Andy's message in dealing with eternal state?
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Anybody? He talked about the sea and how in heaven in the eternal state talks about there will not be any sea.
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Why is that? Anybody remember? Sea is considered chaos.
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Even when you get to Revelation, you have one beast that rises up out of the land, the chaos of the land, but then you have one, which is the figurehead, the actual man, that rises up out of the sea.
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That beast, there's really two beasts in Revelation, rises up out of the sea. Well, in this case,
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God's blowing across the four winds of heaven and he stirs up the great sea.
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Four great beasts were coming up from the sea, different from the other. First was like a lion and had wings like an eagle.
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What's that? Huh? Is that what it's called?
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Well, okay, Griffin. There it is. The man has spoken.
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I would have just said some crazy lion with some wings. But, hey, it's a lion, okay?
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And this is actually spoken of.
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You write it down and make sure my memory is correct. In chapter 4 of Jeremiah, I think it's around verse 7.
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He talks about 7, 8, 9, somewhere around there. He talks about God, I'm raising one up and the lion is coming and he's coming to ravish you.
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He's going to devour your people. He's talking about raising up Babylon. He also does it in chapter 50.
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I think it's around verse 17, 18. He talks about at the end where he's making his judgments on the nations.
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That's how that book's separated. The judgments on the nations. He talks about how here it comes. The lion's coming and he's going to overrun and devour everything.
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And who was that lion that came and overran Judah? It was Nebuchadnezzar.
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And he actually says what it is. I think it's in chapter 50, verse 17. He actually says, and it's
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Nebuchadnezzar. So, this was obvious that the lion is Nebuchadnezzar.
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Nebuchadnezzar is also looked at, the empire is looked at as an eagle as well in Ezekiel 17.
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If you want to write that down and read it, it talks about, and it says, he'll come swiftly, swifting and swoop down like an eagle and wipe out
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Judah. And it was talking about that last deportation that would come. When he swoops down this time, he's going to lay waste to the area.
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So, not only has it got the ruthlessness of a predator, but Babylon's going to be as fast as an eagle.
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That's pretty fast. Hey, if you ever, I love watching those shows where llamas are hopping across the plain and out of nowhere comes a lion and wipes its leg out.
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I love watching that. But you ever seen an eagle swoop down and hit, have you ever seen them hit a wolf?
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Then jokers are so big and they come talons first and they just barrel roll a wolf and then next thing you know, the beak's in the neck and they're pulling out the jugular and it's like, man, that's a bird that just did that.
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Ruthlessness of a lion, the quickness and swoopness of an eagle.
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That's what Nebuchadnezzar's going to be. That's what Nebuchadnezzar's going to be. And at this point, it was obvious to Daniel who that first person was.
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I mean, he knew based on the interpretation that God had given him based on the
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Colossus. So, he, yes sir. Yes, but who's the, yeah, but who's the kingdom?
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Babylon's still in reigning and, correct, as we get to, and just jump ahead, so I'll let you, this will answer your question.
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When he gets to it, it says a mind was given to it. He gets a mind like a man. And, we'll jump ahead anyway, you're right.
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You go, well, is this Nebuchadnezzar? Well, Nebuchadnezzar was always, look, it's the figurehead. He ruled for 43 years. 43 years.
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Hey, all those other people don't amount to anything to anybody else. When Nebuchadnezzar died, the degradation and the fall of that empire began to go.
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Same thing with Ashurbanipal when the Assyrian Empire, he was the one that made most expansion.
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He was the one that did the most great things, architectural, literature, schools, all these things for the empire, although he was ruthless.
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When he died in 626 B .C., the
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Neo -Assyrian Empire began to make a decline, and ultimately it fell in 612 with the fall of Nineveh.
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But that's the same thing that has happened. Nebuchadnezzar obviously has been gone a few years. I think he died in 562,
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I think. So you've had these several kings. Now you're starting to see the decline of that, and it talks about that.
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It says, well, it says here, I kept looking, and the wings were plucked.
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Okay, so here it is. It's ruthless. The wings, what happens to the wings? What does it say?
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They're pulled off. So what happens to the ability for the swiftness of that now lion to jump all over the known world and to attack?
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It's diminished. Yeah, it's diminished. But it still has the ruthlessness of a lion.
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It's not completely degradated yet. He says, and as I lifted it up from the ground and made it to stand on two feet like a man, and a human mind also was given to it.
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That would be, okay, this is the fall of Babylon. Now, I don't know this for sure.
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If somebody disagrees with how I've come to this conclusion, I'm fine with that. But if you teach it, that's why I like teaching this chronologically.
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What just happened to Nebuchadnezzar? Wild beast.
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He remembered who he was. He came back. And what was part of his repentance?
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To quit being unruly and ruthless to the poor and ruling in unrighteousness.
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So do lions have rational thought or do they do instinctively?
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Instinct. There's no way you can tell me that when Nebuchadnezzar came out of his, I don't believe he was converted, okay, but there's no way you can tell me that once he repented, that his mind towards the kingdom and towards people wasn't changed.
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No way. No way you can tell me that. Because it was specific. When you recognize it's me that has given you this.
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Now, he had to recognize not only that God had given that to him, but he had to then manage it as God had given it to him.
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It doesn't mean that he did it with a converted heart, but it was a recognition. That's why he was given a mind of a man.
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Therefore, Nebuchadnezzar has lost his ruthlessness, I would say. And that's what this is saying.
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Who has more ability to ravish people, a man or a lion?
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There's only one person I'm throwing against a lion, and that's Daniel. That's it.
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There's nobody. No man can stand up to a lion. Bare -handed, yeah.
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Now, this man has had his ruthlessness taken away. His swiftness and ability to go all over the known world and to conquer is done.
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And he stands up like a man. It says a human mind also was given to it. Now, that is the fall that you were just asking,
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Mike, about Babylon. Babylon's diminished. It stands up. It now doesn't have the ability to defend itself from any type of fierce predator.
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Okay? We can talk about all the reasons why Babylon fell. There's tons of sociological, moral, all of those.
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But ultimately, Babylon fell because of why? Because God said so.
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Because God said so. Now, it says here, And behold, another beast, a second one resembling a bear.
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So, if we look at the second beast, this would be the Medo -Persian to bear.
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Are bears ruthless? Yeah, they sure can.
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Ain't no man ever killed a grizzly bear with his hands. That grizzly bear goes crazy. I mean, there used to be a show called
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A Thousand Ways to Die. I mean, people always get eaten by bears. Daniel killed him. Huh? Daniel killed him with his bear hands.
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That was Samson. David did. What his head did with his bear hands was a lion.
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Yeah, but he did. He killed him. He said, I grabbed him by the beard. So, here it is.
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It says, second one resembling a bear. And it raised up on one side and three ribs in its mouth.
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So, here's this gigantic grizzly bear looking guy. He looked like he's got kind of palsy on one side.
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My understanding would be this. The reason why that bear was raised up on one side is because one side was stronger than the other.
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The Medo -Persian Empire was a mixture of the two, the Medes and the
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Persians. It wasn't until Cyrus the Great comes along around 550, and he unifies.
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He had a Median mother, Persian dad. And we'll talk about that when we get to Cyrus the Great, Darius the
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Mede, because I believe it's the same person. The Medes become less.
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Don't get wiped out. But they become diminished, and we don't even say the Medo -Persian
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Empire. What do we say? The Persian Empire. So, the Persian Empire, being stronger, exerts its power, and that's what
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Cyrus the Great does in 550. He takes the Achaemenid Empire and consolidates it under one and begins to rule as the
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Persian Empire. And that Cyrus the Great is the one that makes the edict to go back in 539 and all that.
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He's prophesied 150 years before it ever happened in Isaiah. That's the guy, okay? But it is also
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Darius the Mede. Darius the Mede was his Medeo name. Cyrus the
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Great was his Persian name, and we'll talk about it when we get there because it says that in the text, or a derivative of that.
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So, now you have this bear on one side raised up, and it has three ribs in its mouth.
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Now, I don't really know for sure what those three ribs are.
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He has obviously just eaten something. And if we're talking about world powers and world domination, what would be the logical conclusion?
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He just ate up three nations. Now, some people believe it was part of Asia Minor, I think they said, which that would be hard to believe because that's part of the
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Grecian Empire at the time. And some believe it was Egypt. But Egypt had already been subdued by Nebuchadnezzar when he beat
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Pharaoh Nebo, which made him then the man, which then made him take a haul off Jehoiakim.
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So I'm not confident that that's what it's talking about. I am confident that it's whatever those three other nations that they were trying to devour, they just devoured.
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It's very clear that it's still fresh in his mouth. And while he's still chewing on the rib bones, he gets a command.
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Arise and devour much meat. And he just ate. He just...
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That joker right there ate two hamburgers in 2 .5 seconds. He has just ate, obviously, a large -sized beast.
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There's three ribs in his mouth, and he gets a command. Arise. Go and devour much meat.
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Now, arise means maybe he's asleep, full belly. Don't know.
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But this bear is fast. Anybody seen a bear run?
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You ever seen a bear run? People think a bear is because it's so big and it's so lumbersome -looking that it can't run.
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Man, they put their fists down in front of them like this, and then them big old legs come in front of them.
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I mean, it's just... Ain't nobody out running that. I mean, they chase down deer.
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They chase down other... What's that? Seals. I mean, yeah, it's just like this is wild when you see them in pursuit.
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They're not just hopping across somebody's backyard here. I mean, this is... I mean, just...
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And you can see their hair blowing back. It's wild -looking. This bear is headed to where...
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Who commanded him to devour and go eat much meat? God did.
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God did. So now, arise, devour, and eat much meat.
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Verse 6, After this I kept looking, and behold, another one like a leopard.
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All right. So now, there's a leopard.
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That would have been the Grecian Empire. It says, A leopard had on its back four wings.
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So wait a minute. Now we had a lion that was pretty ruthless. He had two wings.
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This one has got four. So what does it say about this? Hey, and a leopard's already faster than a lion anyway.
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And a leopard's also sneakier. It climbs up in trees.
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You know, it moves around. Lions don't normally do that. They just lumber some across the land, see what they need, and they go get it.
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No. This guy's going to be swift. He's going to be sneaky, and he's going to be quick. That is the
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Grecian Empire. Four wings of a bird, and this beast had four heads.
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Now, those four heads would be the four generals.
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Remember, when Alexander the Great comes to, when he, his dad is killed around 336 by the desire for the
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Persian Empire to overrun them. They do basically a sneak attack, assault.
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It kills Philip of Macedon. Philip of Macedon was Alexander the Great's dad.
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You kill a man's dad, what happens? You're very mad. And he has to go back.
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There was parts of Greece that didn't want Alexander the Great to be, he wasn't the great yet, but didn't want
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Alexander to be king. One, I believe, and I could be wrong or misunderstanding, it had to be with his age.
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He was young, probably 18 to 20. But, Philip of Macedon was probably one of the greatest generals to ever live, and he trained his son under, not only his, under his military campaigns, but under the greatest philosophers the world has ever seen,
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Aristotle himself. He, Alexander the Great was an educated man. He was trained for this purpose by his dad to dominate the world.
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They, they set up a campaign, Persia kills his dad, he goes back to, to take the throne, so between 335 and 331, there is some, some civil war uprising, he puts up with no part of it, slaughters some whole cities, 6 ,000 of them.
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The only thing he saved in that whole city was one philosopher that he liked, he saved his house, that's it.
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Takes the throne, makes his campaign, wipes out Darius III, in 330, 331, now,
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Alexander the Great is the man. He continues his campaign in 12 years.
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12 years. I know for you young people, 12 years seems like a long time, but when you get older, it don't seem, it ain't long.
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Is it, Jack? 12 years ain't long.
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I mean, y 'all are thinking about, hey, from the time I was in first grade to 12th grade, man, this has been horrible.
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But when you get an adult, man, 12 years is like, man, look back and it's gone. In 12 short years,
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Alexander the Great ruled the world. Ruled the world. From India, the
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Indus River, all the way to the Nile. Matter of fact, he even set up his, when he conquered
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Egypt, he set up his, his capital of the Greek Empire.
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Where do you think we get Alexandria from? I'm talking about Alexandria and Virginia. We're talking about Alexandria and Egypt.
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That was Alexander's conquest. He set that up. Well, that's what happens.
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In 12 years, he dominates the world. He has four generals that help him do that.
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It says that, and dominion was given to it.
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And after this, I kept looking in the night vision and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful, terrifying, extremely strong, and it had large iron teeth.
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Okay. So this would be the fourth empire that comes up. And I'm just going to say, he's a hybrid animal.
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Because he's saying, not only, hey, these other ones were ruthless, but he's saying this one is extremely strong, dreadfully terrifying, and it had large iron teeth.
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Is there any animal in the known world that has iron teeth? Has anybody ever picked up iron shark's teeth?
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Has anybody ever picked up a jawbone of a lion or a tiger or a bear and it had iron teeth?
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No. So there's something significant about this animal or this beast.
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It devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet. So what does this kingdom do to those?
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Tramples it down. Crushes it. And that's exactly what Rome did. Look, man, Rome, when they went through places, they would burn.
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That's exactly what they did. They would go through. They would wipe cities. And those that wouldn't bow the knee, they'd wipe the cities out, burn them, and then step back and go, look at the peace of Rome.
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That's not peace. That's annihilation. And that's what Rome did. And that's why, under the time of Julius Caesar, was considered the
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Pax Romana, he did keep a thumb on the people. And anybody that raised up, it didn't take long to send, you know, legions of soldiers to squash that.
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Hey, every one of their soldiers carried two swords, a shield, and a spear, and they were guaranteed to not lose the battle.
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They would overwhelm them, people. That's why, when the Jewish wars happened in 66, and the
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Jews actually defeated Cestius in a war in 66, they killed like 5 ,000 or 6 ,000
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Romans, that that emboldened them, because what was Rome not supposed to have happened?
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They weren't supposed to lose legions. Yeah, they weren't supposed to lose a half a legion of soldiers.
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They were supposed to be able to keep on. Well, when they killed them, they saw this as a sign from the
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Lord that what they're doing was right, and the Jews were empowered. They seized their engines, meaning their catapults, and their wagons, and all of their armor, and their javelin launchers, and all that stuff.
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So it's here that this beast is going to be more ruthless than all the other. And it had ten horns.
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And while I was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little one, came up among from them.
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And three of the first horns were pulled up, and the roots before it. And behold, the horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth uttering great boast.
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And we're going to have to stop there, because we've only got a couple of minutes. Oh, turn your
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Bible over to Revelation chapter 13. That way you can see it with your own eyeballs.
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Everybody there? And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore.
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And I saw a beast coming out of the sea, and it had ten horns and seven heads, and on the horns were ten diadems.
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And his heads had blasphemous names. And the beast, which
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I saw, was like a leopard. It was like a bear. And it had a mouth like a lion.
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So you understand, this hybrid animal of Rome has some of these qualities.
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And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. And I saw one of his heads, that is, it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed.
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And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast. They worshipped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast.
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They worshipped the beast saying, Who is like the beast? And who is able to wage war against him? There was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words of blasphemies.
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And the authority to act for 42 months was given to him. And he opened his mouth in blasphemies against God, in blaspheming his name and his tabernacle, that is, those who dwell on the earth.
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And it was given to him to make war with the saints, to overcome them. And the authority over every tribe, people, tongue, and nation was given to him.
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And all who dwell on the earth will worship him. And everyone whose name was not written from the foundation of the world or the book of the life of the
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Lamb who was slain. And if anyone has an ear, let him hear. And if anyone is destined to captivity, he goes to captivity.
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If anyone who kills with the sword, the sword, he must be killed. Here is the perseverance of the faith of the saints.
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This beast that Daniel is seeing in his night vision, laying on his bed, is the same beast of Revelation 13.
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That's the plain reading of both texts. Now, we get more information as we go into the next chapter.
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And he even says some of the same thing as we go on into the chapter 7 next week.
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He says some of the same things. You remember as we read? It raises itself up. There's a little horn that comes out of those other horns.
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And it raises its voice up and speaks blasphemies against God. What did it say about this beast?
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It did the same thing. What did it say about the beast that Daniel is seeing in chapter 7?
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What did it do against the saints? It makes war against the saints. And we'll see that next week.
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This beast that is in Revelation 13 is Rome and it is the rising up of the
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Roman Empire that will persecute the saints. I believe specifically under the
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Neronic persecution before Nero kills himself. And it is the
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Roman Empire itself using the mouthpiece of the emperor to go and persecute the people of God.
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That's why I said, man, when we finish Daniel, we're going to roll right into Revelation. Because when you get to the end of Daniel, he's told to seal up the vision.
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It's not for you, Daniel, to know anymore. Seal it up. This is for the time of the end.
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Then when you get to Revelation, what does he tell John? Don't seal it up.
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The time of the end is near. And if the time of the end is near, that don't mean 2 ,000 years reserved.
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That means this is time for you to know what I'm saying, John. And you need to get these letters out to the churches because the persecution of the saints is fixing to come.
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And when it comes, it's going to be terrible and it's going to be bad. And you need to prepare them for those churches that need to repent.
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If they don't repent, I'm going to come and I'm going to wipe them out. That's what Jesus said He's going to do. But for those that overcome through the blood of His testimony, what's going to happen to them?
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They're going to receive a kingdom and an honor and a glory. What do we see in Daniel 7 already when the
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Son of Man comes? They receive a kingdom and an honor and a glory. Not on our own merits, but on the merits of the
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Son of Man. And we've got to go. Mike, will you pray for us? Heavenly Father, we thank
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You for the study of Your Word. We continue on through the book that we would get a better idea of how things play out in the end.
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And we thank You that You are victorious over the enemies of the world.
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And we just pray that You'd be with us now as we go over to the worship service. We pray that You would bless our time there and bless the fellowship time and the singing and the preaching and the reading of Your Word.
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We pray that everything that's said and done would bring honor and glory to Your name. For it's in Christ that we pray.