Daniel Chapter 7 Verse 1

• So we’ve gone back in time a bit. Chronologically, this chapter belongs between Daniel Chapter 4, which deals with the humbling of Nebuchadnezzar, and chapter 5, which deals with the overthrow of Belshazzar. Why? What’s with the skipping around? Well fundamentally the thrust of the Book changes in this chapter…
• The first six chapters that we’ve covered are about Daniel personally and are essentially historical. The remaining chapters are all prophecy. Here to the end. So the division of the Book in this manner does make sense thematically.
• And notice he says here that “he wrote down the dream, telling the main facts.” The implication? There was more. And look there always is! When God reveals something to you, what you can tell, what you can explain verbally, doesn’t really touch what you now know revelationally. Do you know what that’s called? Relationship.
• You can tell someone all about your husband, or all about your kids but no one knows him or them like you do. Right? And the same with God. As you walk with Him, spend time with Him, follow Him and learn such wonderful time and situation transcendent truth…relationship will thrive! Because in that moment, only you know Him how you know Him…so very personal…
• And same here with Daniel. He dreams a dream and he gives us a bunch of details, but there’s more. Who knows? Only Daniel and the Lord…pretty neat thought…

Daniel Chapter 7 Verses 2 – 3

• These four winds of heaven seem familiar. Have we heard this before? Yes, Revelation Chapter 7, during the Great Tribulation we see four angels restraining the four winds of the earth and the glimpse we get of them implies that they aren’t the good kind. Then again in Revelation Chapter 9 we see four angels who were bound released to go on a killing spree…many believe that these are the same four angels and it seems to line up…
• What does that have to do with Daniel Chapter 7? Well Daniel says that the four winds of heaven (meaning they are angelic) are stirring up the Great Sea which we know from Numbers 34:6-7 and Joshua 1:4 is the Mediterranean, we see them stirring up that area as it were and bringing about four beasts…
• Now, these four beasts are going to line up precisely with the four metals within the image of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream from all the way back in Chapter 2. In fact, the interpretation is the same, the meaning is virtually the same and we’ll get to that. But here’s the link, from the angels set forth to kill, the angels restraining the four winds in Revelation, to the four winds of heaven here…that bring about four beasts…Bible scholars believe, I tend to agree, that they are each angelic beings who preside over specific nations…
• Grab the keys honey, I’ll get the kids, this just go weird…slow your roll Dale Jr., just for minute! We know from the scriptures that nations rise against nation…why? Because Ephesians 6:12 (which incidentally is 6:6:6)…we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
• And we have indication within scripture that cities have specific ruling principals. For example, we’ll see this in Daniel chapter 10 where the angel says to Daniel, “Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words. But the prince of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me…”
• Then, in that same chapter, the angel mentions the Prince of Greece and then again speaks of Michael as Daniel’s Prince, or the Prince of Israel! So we see governing forces, heavenly influences, guardians or spiritual guides if you will, over specific nations and so these four winds of heaven here in Daniel chapter 7, the four angels mentioned with the four winds in Revelation chapters 7 and 9…here’s the tie, they each bring their particular beastly nations, one after the other, for their time in the sun…their attempt to rule the world…but we’ll see all will fall because as Daniel said in Chapter 5 verse 21, “the Most High rules in the Kingdom of men!”
• So here come the beasts! The world empires, the nations…

Daniel Chapter 7 Verse 4

• Who dat? The head of gold, yes! Directly in line with Chapter 2! This is Nebuchadnezzar or the Babylonian Empire! Mighty! As mighty as a lion! As swift in conquering as the eagle! Powerful yet something happened…its wings, plucked off and in totality…it is lifted from the earth. Gives me a picture of a misbehaving child being taken up into the arms of their parent…and then Daniel says that it was made to stand like a man. Now, who went from beast to man? You got it! Ole’ Nebbie! And the implication here by saying a man’s heart was given to it…softness, just like we saw in Daniel Chapter 4, right! Precisely!

Daniel Chapter 7 Verse 5

• The second beast, the second empire, the second nation had none of the speed of the first one. A bear is relatively slow in contrast to a lion. More contemplative in its movements…achieving its objectives by sheer strength and brute force. Daniel says that it was raised up on one side…so there is some sort of duality to it…So line this up with Chapter 2…with the chest and arms of silver as Daniel continued to interpret Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the great image…
• And so the Bear, what nation is it? You got it! The Medo-Persian Empire! It is powerful and huge, raised up on one side as it was the Persians who stomped the Medes and absorbed them…And the three ribs in the bear’s mouth describe so very accurately this empire because together, the united vicious Medo-Persians swallowed up three other kingdoms; Lydia, Babylon and Egypt!
• And who is this screaming out “eat ‘em up!” “Devour much flesh!” Daniel just says “they.” The other beasts? Not so sure. Could it be the sound of the bear’s growl? Described as a “they” because this empire had a duality to it? I like that one, why? Because it was their fighting style…it was so very characteristic of how they waged ware…what was? To be wasteful of human life!
• They would build their armies from the men whom they conquered! And then they would move upon an enemy with overwhelming human force…numbers. When Darius marched through Scythia, he mobilized nearly 750,000 men, not counting his fleet of six hundred ships!
• When Xerxes marched against Greece, he took two and half million troops with him – the historical accounts describe more of a migration than an army! Even Persia’s last and most pacific king brought more than half a million men to the Battle of Issus and two years after their defeat there he was able to drum up another million men for the final battle.
• Conquered nations equaled more ground troops to the Medo-Persians. They were savage! They’d lose hundreds of thousands in a conquest and wouldn’t care…as long as they won…so they would rush in and devour much flesh as they expanded! Herodotus counted and described no less than fifty-six nationalities conscripted by Xerxes for his march against Greece…ah the Greeks…they come next…

Daniel Chapter 7 Verse 6

• The leopard…graceful, beautiful, calculated and swift…the Grecian empire surprised the Medo-Persians and whipped them! Repalced them…ate ‘em up like a gummy bear…the third kingdom, the kingdom of bronze from Chapter 2…led by a fierce and fast ruler named Alexander the Great. Not two wings, four! Super speed man! Just like the red boots from Sonic the Hedgehog…Turbo the snail! HA.
• Alexander the Great virtually leapt across the world! Within ten years he conquered the known world but then…he die (in my best Nacho Libre accent). The four heads of the leopard line up precisely with what happened to his massive legacy….split up between his four generals: Cassander, who took Macedon and Greece; Lysimachus, who took Asia Minor and Thrace; Seleucus, who took Syria, Upper Asia, Babylon and the East; and Ptolemy, who seized Egypt, Pelstine, and Arabia. Dominion over the entire world yet one nation remains…

Daniel Chapter 7 Verse 7

• Daniel reminds us that its night. The lights dim, the eerie bass filled music rises…ka-boom! The revealing of the monster! You know what I’m saying? You ever watch a SyFy flick? And you see the tail maybe…then 20 minutes later you catch a glimpse of the shadow…then maybe the teeth dripping with drool…then, final fight scene…the reveal! That’s what Daniel sees here!
• A beast, different from all the rest. Didn’t look like a lion, a bear, or a leopard…this was dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong…maybe a Kaiju! HA! (Pacific Rim reference) Huge iron teeth completely obliterating the others…they are no match…This is what? The revived Roman Empire!
• Matches up precisely with Daniel Chapter 2. The legs of iron and the feet with ten toes made of partly iron and partly clay…the legs taking up half the total height of the image revealing that the Roman Empire would far outlast the others…even to today…Iron, stronger than gold, silver or bronze.
• The Babylonia empire lasted barely 70 years, the Persian Empire about 200 years and the Greek Empire about 180 years…but the Roman empire, in all its glory lasted some 500 years, longer than the others combined and even today continues in a disunited condition just awaiting resurrection! Resurrection? Yes…the Roman Empire, the long legs of iron, gone…the stinky feet remain…and John saw it too.
• Here is where Daniel’s dream switches to prophecy. Revelation Chapter 13…John see’s a beast rising out of the sea…a picture of a united world, and that beast has seven heads, ten horns, ten crowns…well lets read verse 8 in Daniel to get the full picture…

Daniel Chapter 7 Verse 8

• So this a new, an eleventh little horn, comes up and takes out three of the other horns…leaving…seven you got it, so the picture is in direct alignment with John’s from Revelation…and what we see in Revelation Chapter 13 is that this beast was like a leopard, with the feet of the bear, mouth like a lion…so it will not only crush these others, but it will be these others united!
• And so these ten toes from Chapter 2, these ten horns from Chapter 7, these ten heads and crowns from Revelation 13…what we have here is a one world ruling power. A new world order if you will…the resurrected Roman Empire…why? Why do you say that, Matt? Well demographically the Roman Empire comprised the entire world of nations…centralized world power and really still continues today in our legal system, in our infrastructure design...so demographically right but also geographically Biblical!
• Revelation Chapter 17. The seven heads, what are they? Revelation Chapter 17 says they are the seven hills upon which the Great Harlot sits…What is the city of seven hills? Rome! You got it…and so this is so very clear. This conglomerate beast ruled by a horn…a symbol of power in the Bible and Daniel says with eyes of a man and a mouth speaking pompous words…Revelation 17 says the ten will give their power to the one…the Anti-Christ man…
• Oh how aligned the Word of God is…how very specific and accurate. Think of this. For Daniel to see this…even Alexander the Great taking out the Medo-Persian Empire…would be like George Washington accurately and in detail describing the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Even down to the flight numbers! Yet…it all is true. The Medo-Persians, the bear did devour the lion, Babylon. And the Leopard did maul the bear…as the Greeks did squash the Medo-Persians, and so get this…there will come the New World Order. Count on it. The entire Book of Revelation will play out precisely as it is written…in all the minute details…
• But this prophetic, accurate, inerrant, infallible, perfect and precise book, do you know what the theme of it all is? God’s great love for you. That He would send Jesus to reveal Himself to the world and to save the world that we might have life. We can trust Him. I mean this accuracy, this specificity…historically undeniable…and God’s call upon you to know Him more, equally if not more undeniable.