Daniel 7:1-14
Introduction:
Getting into prophetic part of Daniel now.
**Mention SS (Sunday school) class lesson; in news – end of the world predicted to have occurred yesterday; not going to be making date predictions; Bible says “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”; instead of wild speculation we are going to examine what the Bible really has to say about the things yet to come**
Text: Daniel 7:1-14
Theme:
The destructive turmoil of nations and the everlasting kingdom of God.
Daniel 7:1-3
“Verse Account of Nabonidus”
“When the third year was about to begin, Nabonidus entrusted the “camp” to his oldest, the firstborn Belshazzar, the troops everywhere in the country he ordered under his command. He let everything go, entrusted the kingship to him and he started out for a long journey.”
Belshazzar reigned from 553BC to 539BC, so this vision and dream takes place 14 years before the fall of Babylon.
***Slide of Daniel Structure***
Daniel had a dream of visions. He recognized them as important and wrote them down for us to read here today.
Verse 17 later in the chapter helps us to interpret what is signified by these four beasts coming out of the sea. They are “four kings who shall arise out of the earth.” So the sea is really the world and the beasts are kings. Furthermore, the sea is often used as a symbol for turbulent and wicked humanity.
Isaiah 57:20 says “The wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud.”
Isaiah 17:12 says “Ah, the thunder of many peoples; they thunder like the thundering of the sea! Ah, the roar of nations; they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!”
So the symbolism here is of the restless swell of humanity and the turbulence of fallen mankind. Heaven is interacting with the sea and stirring up great changes. From out of that turmoil comes four different beasts.
***Slide of Statue + Beasts***
***Slide of Babylon***
Daniel 7:4
about Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon. Kings and their kingdoms were a lot more connected in people’s thinking than they are today.
Winged lions were basically the national symbols of Babylon. If you google Babylon images you are bound to find a winged lion eventually. Often times their winged lions had the heads of men on them, kinda weird looking.
“Wings were plucked off” – Nebuchadnezzar being humbled. “Mind of a man was given to it” – Nebuchadnezzar’s return to sanity.
***Slide of Medo-Persia***
Daniel 7:5
about the Medes and Persians. Bear larger than lion, kingdom of Medes and Persians larger than Babylon. Raised up on one side = one side more powerful. The more powerful side was Persia, and that is why you don’t hear much about the Medes. It’s usually just referred to as the Persian Empire by historians. (c.f. – 8:20)
Three ribs likely symbolizes their three major conquests. First they conquered Babylon and surrounding area. Then Lydia and surrounding area. Then Egypt and surrounding area.
Devour much flesh a reference to how powerfully it conquered.
***Slide of Greece***
Daniel 7:6
Greek empire. A leopard is very fitting as they are quite fast and nimble. Four wings makes it even faster and more nimble. Alexander the Great conquered all of Persia all the way to the borders of India in just ten years.
Four heads = Four generals that split the kingdom when Alexander died. Antipater – Greece and Macedonia. Lysimachus – Thrace and Asia Minor (a large part of Asia Minor). Seleucus – Syria, Babylon, Middle East. Ptolemy – Egypt, Israel, and Judah.
More on that later when we get to chapter 8. (c.f. – 8:21-22)
***Slide of Roman Empire***
Daniel 7:7
Roman empire. No animal comes to mind for Daniel to describe it. It is different. It has iron teeth. Iron, like the Iron legs in the dream of the statue. It also had ten horns (statue surely had ten toes). The horns represent ten different kings (verse 24).
***Slide of Divided Empire***
Daniel 7:8
The horns stuck out as both important and mysterious to Daniel. He focused on them.
Rome never reached the final stage of 10 horns (10 leaders).
(c.f. Revelation 13:1) “And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.”
***Slide of Statue + Beasts***
Then another horn came up and three other horns were removed by their roots. This must have been an exceptionally creepy picture, because the horn had a human mouth and eyes. This horn represents the anti-Christ, as we will see in a bit.
Daniel 7:9-10
Ancient of Days = God. He has existed for all days.
White hair and clothes = purity.
Fire a symbol for wrath and judgment, so the image here is of God’s burning anger and intention to destroy the beast and its blasphemous horn.
Stream of fire issuing out… the court sat in judgment… the books were opened = judgment is coming. God’s holy wrath is finally bursting forth, the court is ready, various books in heaven are opened – these books are an account of the wicked deeds of those about to be judged.
Daniel 7:11
While that scene of God’s anger burning hot and the books being opened in heaven was unfolding, the little horn continued to blaspheme loudly. The horn doesn’t stop its blatant attack upon God, even after its doom is surely about to come. When it ought to shut up, it just speaks even more loudly.
Daniel is shocked by the continued display of anti-God behavior from the horn and looks to see what happens.
As Daniel is looking, the beast and its body (which would include the horn) is destroyed and then given over to be burned with fire.
Daniel 7:12
What verse twelve is saying is that the previous beasts are not utterly destroyed when their kingdom comes to an end. When Medo-Persia conquered Babylon, Babylon’s empire was at an end, but the people and city continued for a time. When Greece conquered Medo-Persia, the empire was at an end, but the people continued for a time.
But as for the fourth beast, when it faces God Himself as its opponent and conqueror, it doesn’t just lose its kingdom, it also loses its life. The people of that God-opposing kingdom do not continue. They are destroyed.
Daniel 7:13-14
In separate visions that happened that same night, Daniel witnesses Jesus Christ being given an eternal kingdom by God the Father.
After the destruction of the fourth beast, “one like a son of man” comes and is presented before the Ancient of Days.
“Son of man” is a very important phrase here. This was Jesus’ preferred way of referring to Himself. In the Gospel of Matthew alone, Jesus refers to Himself as “the Son of Man” thirty times.
The kingdoms of man have been destroyed at this point and now the Ancient of Days presents to the Son of Man an everlasting kingdom, one that will not pass away or be destroyed.
Application:
The destructive turmoil of nations and the everlasting kingdom of God.