Daniel Lesson 7

Introduction

Question number two what did the presidents and princes find fault against Daniel?

Yeah, only in the laws God. What was the royal statute made by them?

And what did Daniel do when this writing was signed?

Just as was his custom. And let’s see. Why did the king not uh spare Daniel from the lines of Daniel? Question six.

Yep. Cannot change it. And why was no uh manner of hurt found upon Daniel? What did happen if you Daniel from being hurt?

Yep. And what became of the men that accused Daniel?

Okay. And leading into tonight’s discussion, so we don’t wrap. Who is the uh king that we were talking about here?

Yeah, Daniel ships, yeah. Yeah, there it is. So tonight the book is not chronological, so now we’re skipping back to Belshazzar for the type. Now Daniel chapter six is a really interesting chapter. It’s also a very uh misunderstood chapter, um, very often misused, and usually, at least from what I’ve seen, try and look at these things that people come up with this chapter, that it seems like they’re just missing a couple little things, and is this so often the case when you miss one thing or you know, fail to read something properly and it cascades other things. And tonight we’re gonna look at the vision of the four beasts. The mentioning of some of those uh misunderstandings that they use this chapter this chapter to go into some other things.

This actually is on orange when driving home each day. I pass the sign every day coming home from work. Saturday, the true words today, changed by the antichrist. And according to Daniel chapter 7, verse 25. And of course, as you can see, it’s seven day I don’t guess that are putting this up, and actually, I think they have another one on the other side uh with something with another thing. It’s this this chapter uh teach this. You know, what is this teaching? You know, there’s a verse, they’ve they’re putting a verse, and when you read it, it says something’s not changing something. We’re gonna look at that tonight. First, we’re gonna go through and look at verse by verse what this uh chapter is actually talking about.

Rough outline of the chapter, uh roughly broken down into three sections. The first eight verses describing these visions of these four beasts that he sees. Next section, the vision of the ancient of days in the kingdom, and then we get an interpretation, which all these in this chapter kind of blend together somewhat when we’re looking at this. Well, what we’re getting into this is after we’ve read through this chapter, what do we know initially? I think we should kind of try to take a step back and just we’ve read the chapter perhaps, and we don’t know anything, and this is maybe confusing to us. Let’s consider a couple things right up front. First of all, when we’re reading through this, as we’ll go through it, we’ll notice that there’s some similarities here to Daniel chapter 2, and hopefully I’ll help us understand it.

1. Four Great Beasts Came Up From the Sea

Um we’re actually told in verse 17 that these uh four feasts are representing four kings. And in verse 25, it tells us that uh the saints uh first be the saints of the most high, shall we see. Yeah, shall we give them into his hand for a certain period of time? And that the saints are part of an everlasting kingdom. And we’re kind of getting ahead, but just to kind of frame it, particularly that first part. Okay, so let’s look at the first few verses of chapter 7. In the first year of Belshazzar, King of Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions of his head while upon his bed. Then he wrote down the dream, telling the main facts. Daniel spoke, saying, I saw a vision, I saw my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were starting up the great sea.

Okay. Now granted we know, you know, and I’m presuming we read the chapter, but we already know that you know we’re gonna have a lot of visions. One of the things that’s going to be important is trying to figure out, you know, what’s literal, is this you know what’s symbolic? Well, we when we first read this, okay, he’s having a vision, and he sees a vision by night, and there’s four winds of heaven or stirring up the great sea. Well, wind stirring up the great sea, that doesn’t really include us in totally yet, does it? About whether or not what we’re looking at. But then we get into verse three, and four great great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other. And as we go down, these are some terribly sounding uh beasts that we’re gonna see.

But not to get too far ahead of ourselves. Uh the four ones of heaven, in literature this may uh can represent four points of the compass or four directions, but um here it’s of course stirring up the sea, and the great sea itself, we know it can represent the Mediterranean Sea, but here it’s not really what it’s representing. If we skip over to verse 17, we get some help here with this. Those great beasts, which are four of which are four, are four kings which arise out of the earth. So it’s arising out of the earth. So this is tell us right there that it’s rising out of the earth or the mankind. Um so we know that much, so we know this is represent can be representative of that in the passage once again as we’ve talked about before using the context.

And here we’ve got somebody’s representation of this, as we’ll see these different beasts, and this to me, I’m not sure this actually came from somebody says the beasts as I would say what each of these kind of represent. But that looked an awful lot like the Capo building to me, that one on the far right. But anyway, here’s the this these images of the four beasts coming up out of the sea. Okay. So the first beast.

2. The Lion, the Bear and the Leopard

First was like a lion. This is verse 4. First was like a lion and had eagle’s wings. I watched till its wings were plucked off and it was lifted from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a man’s heart was given to it. So what do you we notice some attributes of this first beach that he sees? It’s like a lion. You think about it, a strong beast. As eagle’s wings. What anybody know what maybe the eagle’s wings could possibly represent? Well, actually, we actually see that two of these beasts have wings. It can mean swiftness. It tells us flies like an eagle. But it also tells us that these wings were plucked off. So perhaps the advances of this beast or this king were checked or something.

It also says they was made to stand on two feet like a man, and a man’s heart was given to it. So it was made uh comparatively weak, it was made vulnerable. And as we’ll see later, it was eventually the meaning was taken away from it. Okay. So, and as we’re looking at this, we’re kind of trying to hopefully try to look and see you know, what are these attributes similar to? What is who does this make us think of, hopefully? And like I said, we’ve got the background of Daniel chapter 2, perhaps, but you know, we don’t want to kind of jump ahead. Let’s kind of see what this could this is this something similar? Or is something totally different? Then verse 5. And suddenly another beast, a second, like a bear.

It was raised up on one side and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. And they said thus to it, arise, devour much flesh. So this was a very deep kind of moving of it. It has raised up on one side. When I first read this, I was thinking, you know, like if the bear’s down all the horse, and it got like a shoulder off or something. And perhaps that it perhaps that represents, as we’ll see if this is representing the Neo-Persian Empire, that perhaps the Persian Empire being a little bit stronger when it raised up. Or perhaps a kind of we’re looking at it if we see it in that way in a little bit different direction, that it’s the bear raising up, you know, like the bear raising up showing itself, you know.

And then you think a big prison bear in the woods or something. Um ready to fight, yes.

A couple different thoughts about what this possible could reference to. Um, I think the one that I’ve read perhaps a bit more most commonly that people think it might be is uh the Persian Empire being made up of really three parts as far as the core of the empire or the core of it, the Persian, the median media, of course, and also Lydia. So perhaps it’s represented that. Also, perhaps somebody suggested that perhaps uh it represented three of the places they had conquered: Syria, Babylon, and Egypt. And as they were devouring this up into this empire. And of course, it was commanded, or rise, devour much flesh, and it’s following this other kingdom. So if we’re looking at it and looking at a parallel of the four kingdoms that have already talked about previously, here you have uh Babylon first, and now you’ve got the Medo-Persian Empire, perhaps.

And then we look in verse six. After this, I looked, and there was another, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird. The beast also had four heads. The dominion was given to it. Here we have a couple other things, and you know, once again, this is a very strange sounding beast. It’s we’ve got this leopard with wings, so not it’s got four wings, representing perhaps swiftness.

Perhaps it representing swiftness, or lying and this animal’s cunning lying away.

After Alexander’s fall, anybody know from their ancient history, what happened?

Yeah, fell in the four minerals. I remember a couple of their names, but I don’t know if I can pronounce the other ones anyway. But I believe it was called me, Seleucid, and then I think I don’t think we’re not thinking the term like that. Suffice it to say, oddly enough, how about that? The priests fell whenever Alexander died, got split up into four southern powers where he was taken over by four of the generals. This animal has this beast has four heads. And it had dominion, and as far as the swiftness, the world links Alexander’s empire stretched out quickly, was how quickly it took over some of his other empires, how quickly it took over land. So once again, we’re seeing parallels to what we can actually see in history.

3. The Fourth Beast, Dreadful and Terrible

And then the fourth beast.

Exceedingly strong. It had huge iron teeth. It was devouring, breaking in pieces, and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns.

And there was another horn, a little one, coming coming up among them, before whom three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots. And there in this horn were eyes like the eagle, eyes of a man and a mouse speaking pompous words. So this, you know, we don’t even really give them like an animal that is described similar to. All we know is that this is something dreadful and terrible, and the picture we had had it looking something like a dinosaur. Um certainly something dreadful. It was different from these other ones. Had iron teeth. Where have we seen iron before recently in this book?

Right.

And it says that it’s uh devouring, breaking into pieces, and trampling. And Daniel chapter 2, verse 40. Describes it as crushing, I believe. Also notice it had ten horns. And we know if we go down to verse 12, as for the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were prolonged for a season at a time. Oh got ahead of myself. And this beast was in the previous verse. I watched the second half of this. I watched till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and it was the burning fire. Okay, so we’ve had these four uh beasts, and as I’ve been alluding to, uh some of the similarities between the reality historically, and also what we saw in Daniel chapter 2.

We’ve got a chart. If we’re roughly representing this is something from something they’ve not been able, but this gives them kind of a comparison for us between Daniel chapter 2, chapter 7, and chapter 8, so we can kind of see how these line up.

Uh wings plucked off and given the man’s heart.

In this chapter, the bear raised up on one on one side, had the three roots in its mouth, devouring. We’ll actually see what in the next chapter as well, another vision. Grease, billion bronze, leopard, four wings of swift. And then we’ll see this here as well. And of course, in the Roman Empire, see there’s the way fire, crushing rope, breaks. This one had huge iron teeth, breaking and trampling, and it was different than these other ones, and it had ten horns. And as we’ll get into God’s kingdom, there’s a stone that take out these other ones. This one we ended up having, we’re gonna talk about two having dominion. So perhaps one of these, and as we get through that, a lot of people may agree on what we said so far, perhaps with some of these things.

But then it gets a little tricky when I’m trying to consider these horns.

In this context, I’m not sure though. I’m not sure if that’s 21. Well, and we will be getting into here in a minute what it actually works goes into that chapter, verse 20.

4. The Ten Horns and the Little Horn

So let us consider first of all the ten horns.

And it gives us more description about the other little horns. So let’s ask right there. Are this these ten, I’m sorry, uh, these ten horns, are they ten separate kingdoms? Or are they what are they?

I think that’s very important here in understanding this, and I think this is where some people go wrong from what some of the stuff I’ve read about this, because they try to construct this as ten new kingdoms coming out of this one when it’s ten kings. And yes, kings, we can talk about rising of his kingdoms. That’s not what’s talked about here. It’s part of this fourth beast, this Roman Empire. So I think the passage is pretty clear there. So that then we get into this little horn, which is really kind of as if the rest of this wasn’t weird enough already. Now we’re getting into a horn that rises up. Verse 8.

Verse 8, it rose up from these other ten horns. And also these three others were plucked out before it. And it had eyes. Eyes symbolizing uh perhaps you know the having intelligence or this and the fact obviously it’s speaking. And what is it speaking in verse 8? This great things, pompous words.

Also, notice if we skip over to verse 20. Keep skipping the Lord chapter. Uh and the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn, which came up before which three fell, namely that horn which had eyes and mouth, which spoke words, whose appearance was greater than its fellows. So we’re getting these little things that still kind of confusing to us, perhaps, trying to figure out what this is. It’s got as we have this sort of bizarre image. Let’s keep on reading what also this passage says about this horn so we can get understand what everything’s spoken of within the text. Uh verse 21. I was watching the same horn who’s making war against the saints and prevailing against them. So now we’re getting a little more detailed.

What whatever this is, whoever this is, is prevailing against the saints. And in verse 25, it’s persecuting the saints. God knows the word shall persecute the saints of the most high. And of course, we see there that part about intending to change the times of the laws. And the saint shall be given into his hand after that. Okay. So we’ve got this little horn, and we’re trying to figure out what this hypothesis represent. And this actually is a pretty difficult thing, and even to figure out exactly, we may be able to get the, I think getting the greater message of this chapter should be, if not straightforward, then we can get there with a little bit of study. But figuring out exactly what these ten horns even are a bit of leave a lot of discussion.

Um sorry, but not the ten horns, but the um the final horn, especially. So there’s really two views that I would accept. I accept the right word. But yeah, I mean two views that are ISIS most commonly held in church to that I would say have a lot that we get a lot of credence to, and they still come to the same point, perhaps, but they are different in how they in uh what they’re actually stating. First of all, there’s the literal view. We start over with ten kings of the kingdom. Uh but something we might ask, and we hopefully get into later. Are these some would argue that these ten kings have to be all at the same time? But whatever these things happening with these kingdoms is some people argue have had happen had happening all at the same time.

Initial mission here. Do you think that’s absolutely required by the text?

No, not necessarily. Um this gets into something we talked about previously. About not putting requirements into something that isn’t necessarily there. If just something’s left open, we can leave it open until we can you know clear it up for us. Um so this would be an old put this whole thing up here, I think.

So this is one there’s a couple of different ways of looking at this, even within this idea of that these ten or literal ten kings, force the final one. Um would start out with that Pompeii, who actually was not technically a seat. Yes, good, I’m sorry.

Oh, she counting, okay. Gotcha. There that’s okay.

Yeah.

Then we’ll keep keep going if something was confused for me. Is there a question up to this point? I’ll probably answer. Hopefully I’ll answer it later, but if you’ve got something now, I’d like to know that that way I can make sure I answer things as we go along. Okay. So Pompeii, they argued as the first one. And he was basically sort of a default Caesar, um, and as part of the first arrival in the Roman Empire, or before it was, I guess before it was an empire when it’s still a republic. They have this for like a council, I’m not sure if the right word is. Um this probably phrases better, but basically there was three men that were in charge of this, and Pompeii was one of these.

And as they would go off to war, and later, as Crassus died, um, Pompeii was almost like the false Caesar because he had so much power. And then they would argue these next several ones I have wisdom here are going through with Pespasian, being the 11th one or the little horn. And the reason they look at this, I think it’s because as these interwars and things were going on, as these empires were switching around for inverse and season switching around, trips one’s one the other, and another one’s one there, so effectively you know it says the three will fluck out. The spacium actually kind of fits this in a way because of the way these others were feedback and pulled away. Well, just to kind of throw everything out there, the counter or the problem that some people would go with this particular arrangement is that A, that um Pompeii wasn’t technically a Caesar, but he was still like I said, basically paco.

Uh there’s also uh some questions about the possible dating, how this would work out with sometimes in the New Testament. Um I’m not totally clear on how on why that is, but suffice it to say there’s some other possible ways of ranging this that people want to suggest. Although the other one with the day, the problem I saw with it was I don’t think they give a real clear explanation of how about three horns being plucked out, and this one seems to give the best explanation about how that would work out. Um going along and continuing with the literal view of this, um there’s verse 25. Um kind of a little bit different, but also kind of tying the same line of thought the way we look at some part of this passage, literal or symbolic.

Verse 25 at the end of it says, then the saints shall be given you this hand for time and times and half a time. There would be that the time is a single year, perhaps. Times would be two years, and half would be half a year. Therefore, we have three and a half years. And as it turns out, when you’re looking at this other arrangement, there’s roughly three and a half to four years before the Jewish revolt of destruction, and therefore you end up with about three years. So it actually would argue work with that as well. There’s another view, and I believe this is the one that Mr. Harprider brings up, though, is more of a symbolic view. Now with this, they would argue that all this a lot of this chapter is symbolic, it represents things, you know, isn’t it?

It doesn’t say the church department.

Obviously, there’s some days.

Which, you know it’s hard to say which kings are which which you know it may be hard to define that, but I think we can define it. Um, it’s just hard, there may be some disagreement over how exactly it works out. But they would argue okay so because and because of that um they would also argue because the first emperor is Augustus we can’t make the work the seas will work out the ten kings work out which is probably true but that’s once again going on the assumption that we can’t consider somebody who’s all powerful or a default leader is an actual leader. And as we know from our previous studies a king can represent somebody who’s not the supreme necessarily all you know the not say the king um and so well it’s not really under requirement to be to understand this passage.

And yes we can understand the main points get reached some of the same conclusions without this necessarily being literal perhaps um and so for this to work out basically say the little horror represents a set of kings um that represent during the period when the church was persecuted and it was um three and a half they would say as well that this perhaps three and a half number um but it’s symbolic of a short period of time. Three and a half if seven is a complete or perfect number then three and a half is a very incomplete number it’s half of a complete number something to that effect.

Okay so and you can get into a whole lot of other strange you know beliefs and everything but as far as ones that I think actually have some creatures. I think both of these you can get to reach the same conclusion when you have from the desk.

Which which what is that you just see the massive question I’ll tell you I’ll tell you which way I would later um which the problem with this with this about you know and that’s the is we have four feet four things. And also there’s which you want to be three things representing a group of things. Um I’m not necessarily saying that’s wrong but to me I think I would get a thought of more things although like I said I still have my own reservations to the trouble deciding for myself which teams and I mean I’ve spoken that’s what’s a five then I’m still not four percent yes.

But if there’s three meeting I would say that way and and obviously you have you do have some of that mixed in it as well away and what does that take away from looking at this as these four things from the line the first feature in the church and the ultimate way to say so you know, went out. Uh that doesn’t take away from that. That’s but you know, it’s I still think it’s worthwhile to look at and to and to understand there are two different ways of looking at it. Either way, it used to work. There’s a lot of ways that you can look at this, which we’ve already kind of learned to, but don’t work with a passage whatsoever. Okay. So then we move on.

Okay, anybody want to raise any questions that I may or not maybe not be able to answer? What does it say?

That’s why you have to do that. Is that not the C or citizens isn’t that processing something just well absolutely? I mean, we’re talking about, and as we’re going to get into, as you know, talking about the saints and the persecution of the church. I mean, when we talk about the time of, you know, you know, these over three times, we’re still looking at two, you know, these empires are still a long way off, as well as the end of the Roman Empire, or the time when it uh the church would rise up. So I mean obviously this is a problem, no doubt about that. Yes.

Yeah, I mean I think that’s a so possible.

Yeah, also a lot of times we’re stepping back. Sometimes it helps be set by logic, sometimes more than this, or even looking at the cultural things that like, you know, look out for purples and stuff. Sometimes in that time view if you’re throwing it, then we can actually. But yeah, certainly maybe we won’t do that.

Yes. Yeah. And and certainly, and there’s, you know, there’s so many little things in there. You know, some of these things we didn’t even I didn’t even look at it particularly because, you know, we’re looking at some things that hopefully lead us to some explanation to understand who these representative right. I’ve known every single thing. You know, I think we should try, you know, try to see every single thing certainly. Especially when somebody brings forward, tries to send them to full out one of the spot and say this means you know something that wants to happen or something else. Also we may be able to stop before we get that part of the sound. We’ll repo you can see how this combo stuff. And I think it’s always worthwhile for us to try to work through these things, and as best we can, seek to understand, and if we can’t understand them, you know, then we just have to work and try to get, of course, not miss the big picture though, certainly.

5. The Vision of the Ancient of Days

I think that’s certainly true that we’ve got to make sure we like this, what this is really getting at. Of course, then we’ll get to that on quickly running out of time. But uh okay, the next part of this is this vision of ancient days. Okay, let’s read first 914. I watched a thrones were put in place, and the ancient days were seated. His ferment was white as snow, and the hair of his head was like pure oil. His throne was fiery flame, its wheels are burning fire, a fiery stream issued them, came forth from before him. A thousand thousand ministered to him. Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.

I watched them because of the sound of the pompous words which the horror was speaking. They watched till the beast was slain, and its body destroyed, and given to the burning flame. As for the rest of these, they had their dominion taken away. Yet their wives were for long for a season and a time. I was watching the night vision, but behold, one like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven, came to the ancient of days, and we brought him here before him. Then to him was given dominion and glory and king and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and language served him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away. And his king is the one who shall not be destroyed.

So here we see this ancient of days, which is scripted God.

The light of the ancient days being purity and righteousness.

That’s another kind of parallel we can see here.

We’ve really pulled most of the question probably in this file on this, and to save time, I won’t go through a whole lot of this, but uh I want to go ahead and kind of skip down verse 26.

But the court shall be seated, and they shall take away his dominion, destroy it forever, and the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom, the whole heaven, and give to the people, something that’s high, this kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions are served and obeyed them. This is the end of the account. My thoughts greatly troubled me, and my countenance changed, but kept the matter apart. Obviously, we see judgment is executed. Uh the kingdom was this everlasting possession, and there was Daniel’s great trouble and not just that. What does he do there for kept the matter apart?

6. A Few Conclusions From This Chapter

This chapter is very interesting, and obviously we don’t do it really time to be talks to it. But I do want to um put perhaps a few conclusions for us that we can get out of this. Obviously, this vision expands upon what we saw in Daniel chapter 2, and it introduces a conflict and something we don’t think we can see in Revelation. It depicts or further explains uh the this establishment of the everlasting kingdom. We know that her during the Roman Empire, and when Christ descended, we know us from the New Testament, and um they would experience a great persecution. So here we have this prophecy all the way this far back, looking forward to something just like we’ve seen before with prophecy looking with often in great detail and sometimes with uh very explicit uh explanations before things actually happen.

And we know from this that the saints are gonna inherit the kingdom. And of course, as we both we know God rules over all rules over this kingdom from earth and in heaven. And so, you know, as we try to get the message, try to get something out of this and all this difficulty and all these strange beasts and all these inner imagery. We can’t miss the point. This obviously foretells, we’re seeing God’s power do that in the voice of God. We see God’s power and his workings in the kingdoms of men. And I got what, like, all maybe a couple minutes left. So I don’t want to go give a chance uh as far as what we look at. Other questions, things that want to clear up a little quick, perhaps before any comments.

Yep.

Conclusion

Yeah, certainly, but and of course also knows he kept it to this different heart. So obviously he’s thinking about these things, and I hope you will too and that you’ll consider these because this chapter is used to go off on a whole bunch of different pages. Very strong, you know, outside of the thing here that the if you haven’t come upon you probably will encounter it. Um because this goes into all kinds of things with the enterprise and everything else right from this passage is has that billboard said that we see it even just driving down the road. So uh next chapter baby don’t cover. So if you have any questions.