Daniel 7, Who Has Power?, Dr. John B. Carpenter

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Daniel 7 Who Has Power?

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Daniel chapter 7, I'll be reading the entire chapter, hear the word of the Lord. In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head as he lay in his bed.
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Then he wrote down the dream and told the sum of the matter. Daniel declared,
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I saw in my vision by night and behold the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another.
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The first was like a lion and had eagle's wings. Then as I looked, its wings were plucked off and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man and the mind of a man was given to it.
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And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear, it was raised up on its one side.
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It had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth and it was told, arise, devour much flesh.
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After this, I looked and behold, another like a leopard with four wings of a bird on his back.
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And the beast had four heads and dominion was given to it. After this,
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I saw in the night visions and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong.
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It had great iron teeth and it devoured in broken pieces and stamped what was left with his feet.
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It was different from all the beasts that were before it and it had ten horns. 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.
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And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things.
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As I looked, thrones were placed and the Ancient of Days took a seat.
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His clothing was white as snow and the hair of his head was like pure wool.
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His throne was fiery flames. Its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him.
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A thousand times, a thousand thousands served him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.
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The court sat in judgment and the books were opened. I looked then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking and as I looked, the beast was killed and his body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire.
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As for the rest of the beast, their dominion was taken away but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.
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I saw in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man and he came to the
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Ancient of Days and was presented before him and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people's nations and languages should serve him.
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His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
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As for me, Daniel, my spirit within me was anxious and the visions of my head alarmed me.
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I approached one of those who stood there and asked him the truth concerning all this and he told me and made known to me the interpretation of the things.
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These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth but the saints of the
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Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, forever and ever. Then I desired to know the truth about the fourth beast which was different from all the rest, exceedingly terrifying, with its teeth of iron and claws of bronze and which devoured in broken pieces and stamped what was left with his feet and about the ten horns that were on its head and the other horn that came up and before which three of them fell, the horn that had eyes and a mouth that spoke great things and that seemed greater than its companions.
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As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them until the
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Ancient of Days came and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom.
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Thus he said, as for the fourth beast, there shall be a fourth kingdom on earth which shall be different from all the kingdoms and it shall devour the whole earth and trample it down and break it to pieces.
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As for the ten horns, out of the kingdom ten kings shall arise and another shall arise after them.
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He shall be different from the former ones and he shall put down three kings. He shall speak words against the
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Most High and shall wear out the saints of the Most High and shall think to change the times and the law and they shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time.
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But the court shall sit in judgment and his dominion shall be taken away to be consumed and destroyed to the end and the kingdoms and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under which the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the
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Most High. Their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom and all dominion shall serve and obey them.
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Here is the end of the matter. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts greatly alarmed me and my color changed and I kept the matter in my heart.
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May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Well, who has power?
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Who has the power in your life? An American individualist will insist that, well, no one has power over me.
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I'm my own man. But of course, we need a government that has power and yet one that protects inalienable rights, rights that no person should have the power to be able to take.
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And so we developed a Constitution with laws and checks and balances. The Constitution is supposed to tell us who has power.
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In China, the rulers used to claim the mandate of heaven. You had the mandate of heaven, you had power. The forces of heaven had given them the power to rule, they said.
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Well, of course, the question is, well, how do you know? How do you know who has the mandate and who has the right to rule?
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Mao Tse Tung said power comes out of the barrel of a gun. You know who has the power by who has the guns.
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In a democracy, we said, well, whoever wins the election, whoever can garner enough votes, power to the people, they shout.
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But what if the majority is wrong? Ah, but democracy believes in the old Latin phrase,
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Vox Populi, Vox Dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God. It's true,
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I think, but you better be careful what God is saying. In medieval
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Europe, they answered the question of who has the power with the doctrine of the divine right of kings, that the kings are empowered by God to rule and so they should be obeyed unquestionably.
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They had a right from God to rule. Their word was law. The Latin term for that was rex, lex.
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The king is law. The king was not subject to any law. He was the law.
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King Charles I of England, he lived in the 17th century, believed that. And so when the Puritans resisted his attempts to impose uniformity and traditions on the churches, well, he wouldn't listen.
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He didn't recognize any power above him. He didn't think he had to negotiate with anybody to listen to anybody.
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His word was law. And so when the rising Puritan movement had so many members in Parliament that they began to question the king, he dissolved
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Parliament, tried to rule as a dictator. You know, what I need Parliament for? I have the divine right to rule, he thought.
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He even tried to have some of the members of Parliament arrested. And so Parliament raised an army to oppose him, oppose
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Charles I. And so began the English Civil War, which ended when the forces of Parliament, dominated by Puritans, were these earnest
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Christians that are seeking to obey God. They defeated the king. They took him prisoner.
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They put him on trial and insisted that the truth was not rex, lex, the king is law, but lex, rex, the law is king.
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They subjected Charles I to the law, put him on trial, found him guilty, and cut off his head.
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Who has the power? According to Satan, in John Milton's epic poem,
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Paradise Lost, it is, Satan says in the poem, better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.
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That is this fictional Satan. I'll go wherever he gets power. And Milton put that quote in the mouth of Satan to epitomize what evil is.
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Evil is the decision that I must have power no matter what, even if it means having power in hell.
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That's preferable than to being subject to God. Now some then think, well, all power is wrong then.
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All desire for power is wrong. We should want to overcome the will to power. Somehow it's always evil.
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And so, Jimi Hendrix made the pithy observation, when the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will have peace.
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That's true, but incomplete. Love often needs power to bring about the power of love on earth.
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You can think of someone you love. It was in danger. It was being threatened by someone criminal wanting to hurt him or her.
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You would want power to protect the one you love. Because you love them, you want power to be exercised.
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But that puts us in a bind. Love needs power, but power often turns people into unloving beasts.
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As Lord Acton famously said, power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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It tends to make beasts out of those who crave it, and then when they get it.
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And we see that here at Daniel chapter 7. Daniel 7, it's a crucial hinge chapter in the book of Daniel.
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It's transitioning from the narrative first half of the book, the first six chapters, which is all about the life of Daniel, these stories from the life of Daniel and his friends in Babylon, to the second half of the book of Daniel, which consists of four visions that Daniel has received.
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We just read one of them. And here this vision is in the first year, he dates it in the first verse, the first year of Belshazzar.
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And so this vision, if you remember Belshazzar from two weeks ago, he was the king. At the end of his dynasty, the handwriting on the wall appeared, and Daniel came in and deciphered it.
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So this, what we just read in chapter 7, this vision is before that. Chapter 5, the handwriting on the wall is the very last day of Belshazzar.
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This is in the very first year of Belshazzar, and it's also before chapter 6, where in the
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Persian kingdom, where the den of lions was. And so this vision in many ways resembles the vision that Nebuchadnezzar had in chapter 2.
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In fact, it's a retelling, it's another way of saying many of the same things in chapter 2, where Daniel tells
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Nebuchadnezzar, remember, Nebuchadnezzar had the dream. Daniel told him the dream and then interpreted it, and the interpretation there is very similar to the interpretation of this dream.
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So you can interpret them together. You think this is very mysterious, but God gives us two ways of approaching the same subject.
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So Daniel saw a statue, remember, or actually Nebuchadnezzar saw the statue, and with four sections in it going from head to foot, and it is obliterated by a huge stone that's flung out of it.
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And the interpretation is that the four sections or four empires, one after the other, ending in the last empire is one made of iron and clay, which is crushed during the last empire when the kingdom of God comes on earth, reducing those four kingdoms to dust.
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And now is the beginning of chapter 7, Nebuchadnezzar is dead, Belshazzar is the new king, this is his first year.
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And so, who has power? Well, we see here three possible answers to that.
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First, the beast, or the son of man, or finally, the saints of God.
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Who has power? Beasts do. Daniel sees a vision and the vision is set on the shore of the
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Mediterranean Sea, it's called the Great Sea, which is being stirred up. The sea is being stirred up by winds blowing from every side, so it's a stormy sea, verse 2.
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And he sees what power is like in this age. And this is a prophetic dream, and so it's symbolic, all these things are symbolic, symbolic images and symbolic numbers.
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The sea, being tumultuous, is symbolic for the world, that it's restless like waves, it's in turmoil, no person can calm it.
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And it's churning, and out from it come these four empires. Four, the number is also symbolic, is sometimes used in Scripture as symbolic of enough plus one more, more than enough.
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Three being enough, with one more added to it. There's a lot of this in Amos. For three sins of so -and -so, and for four.
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There was enough sins to condemn you, and then there's one more. Here, enough empires, and then there's one more.
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Emphasizing particularly here, emphasizing the last thing, focusing on the last thing, the fourth being the addition.
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So it's more than enough. It's also literally, four here, literally, as we saw in chapter 2, was the number of the empires that came from the time of Nebuchadnezzar, from Daniel, to the time of Christ.
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There were four empires, so it's kind of easy to interpret. And Christ, of course, told us that in his time, he brought in the kingdom of God.
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So each beast comes out of the turmoil of the world, and in the end, God's kingdom comes.
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And the image of each beast are symbolic, too, of those empires. The first was a lion with eagle's wings. Here, the first beast was a lion with eagle's wings, which is an image liked by the
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Babylonians. It's kind of their logo. Their city, the city of Babylon, was decorated with images of winged lions.
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And it was given the mind of a man. You remember, it says in verse 4, if you remember the story of Nebuchadnezzar, who went insane like it was a cow for a while, and then he was given back a mind of a man when he finally recognizes the sovereignty of God.
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And he says that those who walk in pride, God is able to humble. And Nebuchadnezzar, the great emperor with absolute power, clearly answers the question, who has power?
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Well, God does. He answers that in chapter 4, remember? So, the first empire is clearly the
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Babylonians. Babylon had power. The second empire, in verse 5, is symbolized by a bear.
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But it's kind of a deformed bear. It says one side is higher than another. So, you can see, like, one side of it is very muscular and big, and the other side is kind of smaller.
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And this is the Medo -Persian empire that is supposed to be an alliance between two empires, the
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Medes and the Persians, all coming out of, both coming out of what we now call Iran. But in reality, it was dominated by the
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Persians. They were really much stronger. And so, it was unbalanced, just like in the vision. And the bear in this vision has three ribs in his mouth, three, again, being, like, enough, and is told to arise, devour much flesh.
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Who's telling him this, by the way? Well, God Himself gives this empire a mandate to conquer. In Isaiah chapter 44 and 45, where Cyrus, king of Persia, put together the
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Persian empire, is first called the Lord's shepherd, thereby Isaiah, who shall do my will.
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And then he's called the Lord's anointed, whom the Lord has grasped by His right hand, that is, that Cyrus may subdue nations before him.
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In other words, he did God's will. Whether he recognized it or not, he did. And in here, in Daniel's vision, it's given by God.
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The command comes from God Himself, arise, devour much flesh. And that's what he did. He's getting power over the entire
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Middle East, from Egypt to India. That's a lot of territory, subduing the
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Babylonian empire. Persia had power. Well, the third empire, in verse 6, is like a leopard, but a leopard with four wings and four heads.
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And the leopard, leopards are fast. And of course, if it has wings, it can fly even more fast, it's faster.
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Four wings, that's even better. And this just all represents its speed. This was the
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Greek empire, led at first by Alexander the Great, who led it to conquer the entire Persian empire, and then go beyond it in less than 10 years.
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And now, that's marching. That's not like today where you can fly paratroopers somewhere or drive tanks.
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That's marching by foot and conquering that much territory in just 10 years, all the way from Greece to India.
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But when he died at a young age, I think he was about 32, his empire was divided into...
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Can you guess how many parts it was divided into? Four, just like in the vision here. Hence, four heads.
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Greece had power. And the fourth empire, starting in verse 7, is unlike anything else he's seen.
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You can't compare it to any kind of beast in nature. It's just so terrifying, he called it, and dreadful, and exceedingly strong.
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In the vision of the statue, back in chapter 2, remember the vision of the statue? The fourth empire was the iron legs and the feet, and they're iron, the strength they could trample down everyone else.
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This empire here, this terrifying beast that you can't describe, it's not like anything, any kind of animal out in nature.
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This empire has iron teeth for devouring all the beasts that were before it. As in chapter 2, this is
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Rome. The empire known for its crushing legions, breaking down other kingdoms, all the way from Britain in the west to Syria in the east.
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And this beast had 10 horns, 10 being a symbol for many. And the horns, you can see horns many times in this passage.
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Horns are symbols all through Scripture for power. An animal with a horn, that's the way it exercises its strength, its power.
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What it attacks with is the horn. So it has 10 of these, which means it has a lot, a lot of power.
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Rome had a lot of power. And Daniel's most interested in this fourth beast, the one that's terrifying and strong and doesn't compare to any natural animal.
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So starting in verse 15, he's anxious and he's alarmed. In verse 19, he specifically asks, but he asks some heavenly being, something like an angel about the fourth beast, the one that's unlike anything else he can compare it to, what are these 10 horns?
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And that little horn in particular, the one that has eyes like a person's, and a mouth that speaks great things, overthrew three others, boasting, persecuting the people of God, wearing out, it says, the saints of the most high, seeking to change the times and the law.
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And for a time, it says in verse 25, they, meaning the saints, believers in the
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Lord, they shall be given into his hand, into the hand of this little horn, this boastful and arrogant, and has power, because it's a horn, meaning that God's people will be under his power, suffering under his authority, for a time, times, and half a time.
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All very mysterious sounding, isn't it? I mean, I'll be insinuating that it's three and a half, exactly half, by the way, the number, the perfect time that Nebuchadnezzar was insane for.
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Remember, he was insane for seven times before he confessed that God has the power.
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So what does all this mean? All very mysterious and weird. Well, first, this little horn may refer literally to a man named
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Antiochus Epiphanes. I don't know if you've heard him before, but you're about to, not only today, but in the next few weeks, because he is prophesied.
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He appears, he's a real literal king who ruled the Syrian empire during the time between the intertestamental period between the
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Old Testament and the New Testament. But he was the king over one of those four sections of the Greek empire that it fell into when they divided into four parts after Alexander the
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Great died. He assassinated or displaced three other kings. He tried to exterminate faith in the
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Lord. He tried to wipe out belief in the Lord, following the Lord. And we'll talk a lot more about that.
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He outlawed God's law. He tried to change the times by prohibiting the
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Passover, the law's feast, God's law's feast. He required, in particular, the
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Jews to eat meat sacrificed to his gods. And they caused a lot of fighting over that.
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And during his campaign to destroy God's law, the temple was desolate for three and a half years.
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But the problem with this is that this little horn, it's a little mysterious, that it comes during the time of the fourth beast.
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In chapter eight, as we'll see next week, there's also a little horn that arises out of the four, four horns that there, there's the
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Greeks focusing there on the four parts of the Greek empire. And there, in that next, in the next chapter, we'll see next week, the little horn is definitely, obviously,
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I think, Antiochus Epiphanes. Now here in chapter seven, the persecuting power may be based on him.
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It's originating with him. Maybe he's the first one to fulfill this. But it seems to be a part of this little horn of that last empire, if this is making any sense,
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I hope so, arising from the ten horns. The abundant power of the last empire, when the kingdom of God comes, is another persecutor of God's people, right?
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He, they're, God's people are given into his hands. He tries to wear them out. So he could be, this little horn could be any oppressor, any persecutor of God's people.
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Antiochus Epiphanes, Herod, Nero, Papist, Muslims, Queen Bloody Mary, Charles I, Hitler, Stalin, Kim Jong -il.
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He has power. And notice where that power comes from at the end of verse 25.
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They, that's the saints, shall be given into his hand. That is, he has power given over God's people.
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Now, given by who? Who did the giving to him? The voters? Did they give it to him?
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He won an election? By the constitution of the Greek or the Roman empires? No, can't be that.
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By a judge declared, you've given authority over them. Does power come out of a barrel of a gun?
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No. Given by God. This is another instance. We've seen many times in Scripture of leaving the name of God unnamed.
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It's called a divine passive, a passive sentence, like authority. They have been given into his hand.
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Given by who? Well, it's a passive sentence. And the subject who's doing the giving is implied, and it's implied to be who?
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It was implied to be God. God is the subject here of a passive sentence. God has given the little horn power over his people in this age, in this present evil age.
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God sometimes gives his people over to the power of oppressors.
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Human power without obedience to God is bestial, like a beast.
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It's oppressive and cruel. But even when it comes from, even when it comes from God, that power, it still, it corrupts them.
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And they become beast. But then in verses 12 and 26,
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I'll explain why I'm kind of skipping around a little bit. But in verses 12 and 26, God's court sits in session.
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But the court says, God's court shall sit in judgment, and his, that's the little horns, persecutors, his dominion, his power, the power of the little horn shall be taken away to be consumed and destroyed to the end.
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It's going to be continually destroyed. Then in verse 13 to 14, someone new arrives.
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He's not a beast. He's described as one like a son of man.
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The others look like beast. This one, this new one, looks like a man. To him was given dominion, is given power by God.
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Now, here is the second option. Who has power? The son of man.
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God's court has power, and God will take back the authority, the power that he gave to the persecutors, to the little horn, power that this little horns persecutor is using to wear the saints out.
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God's court shall sit in judgment over all the powers for what they did with the authority that God gave them.
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He'll sit in judgment over them for ruling like brute beast. That court is described starting in verse 9.
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There, Daniel is looking at a succession of beasts. Remember? Seeing this vision, a succession of beasts, one after another, coming out of the tumultuous sea, coming out of the world.
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And then he sees the scene change dramatically. Everything changes. No longer tumultuous sea.
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From the turmoil of the earth and sea to now, you're looking at the throne room of heaven.
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Thrones, plural, replaced, suggesting that the power we're about to see is shared, right?
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Who sits on the throne has power. But here's the plural thrones. So this power is distributed to several.
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But among the thrones, the most important one is that on which sits the, calls him several times in this passage, the ancient of days.
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He's talking about God, the one from eternity past, from ancient times.
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And he takes his seat on the throne, the chief judge, the king.
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And he's telling us clearly, Daniel is here in the vision, who has the power.
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His clothing is described as his white as snow, his hair like wool, portraying his purity, absolute power with absolute purity and one divine being.
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Power has not corrupted him. His throne was made a fire with even wheels like a chariot for being dynamic and moving.
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Also a fire with a stream of fire flowing out before him, all this showing in picture form what
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Hebrews says, our God is a consuming fire. He is the holy judge who cannot remain with evil, who will either set our hearts on fire with a love for him or will punish with fire.
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Here he is summoned by an enormous multitude around him, millions and millions and more.
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They served and they worshiped him. This is God's court. It's in session. And they opened the books, it says.
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They've recorded every life. They've recorded God's verdict on powers and on people.
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And yes, on the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Chinese, the
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Arabs, the Spanish, the British, the Americans, they all had power. But God would judge them all for how they used it.
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But only because this court over them all, they had power only because this court gave them power.
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So the books were open. The end of verse 10. The beast, this dreadful, terrifying beast of arrogant human power that refuses to acknowledge
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God's power, that dares even to try to displace, even to overthrow God's power by demanding that God's people obey it, obey him rather than obey
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God. That's what persecutors do when they decide that they will try to force us to obey them rather than obeying
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God. It's as though they think they have the power to take God's place in our life.
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That beast, in verse 11, is killed. That's what happens when
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God sits in judgment. He passes a sentence and executes the beast.
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Here we see that even if the beast courts, rule against us, even if they rule that God's word is, you can't teach it anymore.
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You can't believe it. Like Antiochus Epiphanes literally did in his day. Maybe in our day, rule that God's word is his hate speech.
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Rule that unborn human life can be killed. Maybe rule in the court of public opinion, the vox populi, maybe the voice of the people rules that, well, you just cannot say that, whatever it is.
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You must say that there are many ways to God. You must say that all lifestyles are equally moral. You can't say that what scripture says about some sins.
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You cannot say who God really is consuming fire.
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The beast then tries to make us forget God's law. They're the king, they think, and their word is law.
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Rex, Lex, they say. If we think our democracy is sufficient protection, we will be disappointed.
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I saw just it was last week or the week before a British court rule that a handicapped baby had to just be left to die.
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The parents wanted it treated and they were willing to take it to Italy. The Italian government even gave it citizenship so they could take it in the
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British. No, I don't know what kind of reasoning there is to that. That's, that's bestial.
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Now, when the beast courts rule against us, it helps if we can see this vision of Daniel.
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We could share it, this scene, starting in verse 13, of who has power.
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Who has the power? Well, the Son of Man does. Daniel stops at verse 13. He reminds us that this is in his, this is in his vision.
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Behold, he says, always pay attention to this especially. It's because he's pausing, he's setting us up for what's really the pinnacle, the climax, the revelation of who really has the power.
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It's not Nebuchadnezzar or Cyrus or Alexander or Antiochus Epiphanes or our courts or our congresses or presidents or even the people.
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The Son of Man has power. Notice God in one person is already at the court, right?
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We've already seen that, sitting on the throne. Notice in verse 9, the Ancient of Days, it's God, is seated on his throne, thousands or millions serving him, fire issuing from him, judgment comes from him on the beast.
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It's on the people with power in verses 11 and 12. And then, so God's there already, right, on the throne.
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Then in verses 13 and 14, another figure appears.
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The others with power were beasts. Power had corrupted them, turned them into beasts.
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But this figure is like a Son of Man. He's like a human being, and he is given power, and power does not corrupt him.
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It doesn't turn him into a beast. Then this one, like a Son of Man, he comes to God, God on his fiery throne, and God gives him power.
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To him, it says, was given dominion and glory and a kingdom.
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So God in one person is on the throne, giving dominion and glory and a kingdom. To this one, like a
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Son of Man, who gets power from God. And then it says all peoples, nations, and languages should serve, or it could be worship, him, all peoples, all ethnic groups, all races, all nationalities should worship him.
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So his dominion or his authority is everlasting. His kingdom will never end.
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No longer is power given over to beast, but to a man. And he will have that power forever so that all people will serve him forever, which means that he lives forever.
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He is worshiped and has all authority for all time. That is something that could only be said of God himself.
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The Son of Man is God. So who is the
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Son of Man? Well, the Lord Jesus simply told us. Son of Man was his most frequent title for himself.
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He often referred to himself as the Son of Man. In Matthew chapter 24, verse 30, he quotes this verse,
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Daniel chapter 7, saying that he, Son of Man, says the Son of Man will be seen by all kinds of people, coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
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And just a couple of days later, in Matthew chapter 26, verse 64, Jesus was standing before the priest, before the beast on trial for his life.
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They thought they had the power and they were going to use it to make war on the saint.
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And they asked him, you know, are you the Christ, the Son of the living God? And Jesus answered, remember how he answered?
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By referring to this verse in Daniel chapter 7. He basically paraphrased it. Jesus said, you will see the
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Son of Man, me, seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.
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Who has the power? The Son of Man, Jesus does.
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People often read the Gospels and are a little perplexed by that title, Son of Man. Why did
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Jesus refer to himself so often as the Son of Man? And they often just assume that he's referring to his humanity.
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He's emphasizing that he's a human being, you know, like you and me. But Jesus didn't need to emphasize his humanity to people who knew him, who were right around him.
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They could just look at him, they could touch him and see that he was fully human. What Jesus was doing when calling himself the
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Son of Man was saying, I'm the one in Daniel 7 who comes on the clouds of heaven and is served for eternity because I am
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God. I'm the one who came to the ancient of days.
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God the Father. I came in that vision and I received dominion and glory and everlasting kingdom.
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Jesus was saying when calling himself the Son of Man, do you want to know who in the end has the power?
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I do. Who has the power? But in this present evil age, beasts have power.
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Even sometimes little horns speaking arrogant things about how much power they have. Talking about how their word is law, rex lex.
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That they have a divine right to be a king and they have a mandate of heaven or a thousand -year Reich or a worker's paradise based on atheistic materialism.
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Or even that the goal of history is to bring about the triumph of democracy. And then nothing can get in the way of the voice of the people, the
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Vox Populi. But the truth is that over and above all the beasts, the
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Son of Man has power. And because he has that power, eventually the saints of God will have power.
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The third option, the saints. This chapter divides easily into two matching parts.
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From verses 1 to 14, there's this vision Daniel tells. And then from verses 15 to 28, the second half, is the interpretation of that vision.
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Everything in the first half is matched in the interpretation in the second half. That's why I've been going back and forth because it refers to the same thing.
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The four kingdoms of the first half are in verse 17, the four kings.
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This is four kingdoms in the first half. In verse 17, the second half, there's four kings. The little horn mentioned in the vision in verse 8 is described in verses 20 and 21 and 25 as a boastful authority, a powerful person who persecutes
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God's people. The Ancient of Days in the vision in verses 9 and 10 is mentioned again in the interpretation in verse 22.
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The Ancient of Days, that is God, ends the power of the little horn, judging it.
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In verse 26, his court, God's court, comes into session. God overrules the proud, persecuting little horn who didn't think he had to answer to anybody, but he has to answer to God.
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So everything, the point is everything in the vision in the first half has a parallel in the interpretation in the second half.
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But there's one obvious, important shift from the vision to the interpretation.
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In the vision, it's the son of man who receives power. In the interpretation, suddenly, unexpectedly, in verses 18, 22, and 27, it's the saints.
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The saints are the most high. They, the saints, receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, forever and ever.
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Verse 18, the saints possess the kingdom. In verse 22, and the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the most high.
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In verse 27. So in the vision, it's the son of man who receives the kingdom.
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In the interpretation, it's the saints of God. Which is it? Both. The saints of God have power because the son of man receives it for them and then gives it to them.
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There is indeed power to the people, but only to the people of God.
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Now, one common idea of this chapter is one term over and over again is head. And so the idea behind that is headship.
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Heads are not only over people with power, but they act for them. They represent the people they are head over.
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So in verse 17, the beast, which were kingdoms in the vision are now in the second half in the interpretation are kings and kings who act as the heads of their people.
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The leopard has, remember, four heads because the Greek empire soon divided into four parts with four kings.
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So the one like a son of man receives the kingdom in verses 13 and 14. And then in the interpretation, in verse 27, the saints of God receive the kingdom.
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That's because the son of man is the head of the saints. The saints of God's head is the son of man.
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So when he receives the kingdom, he receives it for them, sees it for us.
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And as their head, as our head, he suffers for them, suffers for us.
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He lives a perfect life for us as our head. So that the saints can be saints, that is holy ones.
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That's what the term means, holy ones, because he obeyed for us. He was our head. He lived a perfect life.
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He was holy. He was the holy one. So because we're, he's our head, we're then saints, we're holy ones.
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He was holy for us even when we were not holy at all. But because he's our head, God sees him acting on our behalf as our head, as our king.
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All those people whom he is the head are now regarded. We are regarded like he is regarded as holy, as a holy one, as a saint.
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And so he receives power and we receive it through him because he is our head.
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Who has the power? Jesus, the son of man, and us, the saints of God.
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That's what Daniel saw. That's what the New Testament teaches. The apostle Paul tells us in Romans chapter 8, verse 17, that we are children of God and as children, we're heirs.
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We're heirs of God. That is, we inherit from God what belongs to God.
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We inherit based on our relationship with God. We inherit blessings, including power, the kingdom.
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Remember Jesus said, quoted a few weeks ago, Fear not, little children. It is your father's will to give you the kingdom.
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So we are fellow heirs with Christ. That is, he is the firstborn. He is the first heir.
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He is the son of man receiving dominion and glory in the kingdom as witnessed here by Daniel.
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And because he is our head, we receive power through him.
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But don't miss what Daniel sees and what Paul teaches.
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The beast make war on the saints. He will try to wear us out.
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Paul says we are heirs provided we suffer with him.
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I think some people like passages like Daniel 7 because they think it gives them a heads up to tomorrow's headlines.
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So it gives them power. It tells them in their interpretation, they think it tells them what is soon going to happen.
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You know, an antichrist is arising out of a 10 nation confederacy made up of the former Roman empire and so on and on.
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And that knowledge, they think that gives them a sense of power. Now imagine the power you would have if you could know what's going to happen next in the future.
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But that's not the purpose of Daniel 7. Daniel himself in that last verse, notice he's alarmed.
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He's awed. He's overwhelmed. And when he sees what
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God will do, he's amazed by that, that God has the power and he will share it with his people.
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But he will share it with his people who are willing to suffer for him.
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Samuel Rutherford was a saint who reigned and suffered. He was born about the year 1600 in Scotland and he was set on fire by God.
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He became a pastor in the Presbyterian church in Scotland. He was, Rutherford was known for always preaching and praying and teaching.
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He ardently defended the truth against the attempts of King Charles I, who thought his word was law to impose his traditions on the church.
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In 1636, Rutherford published a book defending what we call the doctrines of grace.
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Salvation is by God's sovereign mercy. He has mercy on whom he has mercy. And for that, for that book, he was called before the high court in Britain, deprived of his position as pastor.
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And he was sent into exile in Aberdeen, Scotland, persecuted by a beast.
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But soon the church of Scotland rebelled against Charles I, refusing to recognize his headship. And Rutherford was allowed again to teach and to preach.
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And when the English Puritans down, he's in Scotland, they're down in England, eventually tried and executed
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Charles I, Rutherford wrote a book entitled Lex, Rex, the law, the law of God is king.
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But about 15 years later, when he's 15 years older, a new king was restored in England.
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Rutherford was accused of high treason, summoned to the court, to the king's court in London.
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But seriously ill, he responded from his deathbed and said, tell them
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I have got a summons already before a superior judge and court.
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And I must answer my first summons. And before your day arrives, I will be where few kings and great folks come.
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Rutherford had decided who had the power in his life.