09: World News & Prophecy - Daniel 7:1-7

[Darris McNeely] All right, well, welcome back to the book of Daniel. We are going to jump into Daniel 7 today. Last class, we finished Chapter 4. Now, you might ask, "What happened to Chapters 5 and 6?" Good question. We're going through Daniel in a chronological approach. All right, and so chronologically, Chapter 7 falls after Chapter 4 and so does Chapter 8. And so we'll do Chapter 7 and 8, which really do form a unit, and then we will go back to Chapter 5 which wraps up the Babylonian empire and move forward with that.

And so where we are today as we kind of look at this when you look at Daniel 7:1.

Daniel 7:1 It says, "In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and the visions of his head while on his bed. Then he wrote down the dream, telling the main facts." 

So we ended last class talking about King Nebuchadnezzar. The prominent king that kind of revived the Babylonian Empire and took what is called the Neo-Babylonian Empire, version 2 if you will, to its greatest height of power and expanse and influence, and it is the one we deal with in Scripture.

And so we saw that he had had seven years of insanity. We talked about that. We are going to go back into Daniel 4 when we go back to Daniel 5 and bring out some other material there regarding his seven years of insanity, but that will be a kind of a module ahead of this yet. And so the way Daniel is put together, the chronology picks up in Chapter 7, and so we're still in Babylon, the first year of Belshazzar. Now, there have been three other kings in between. Nebuchadnezzar died in the year 562.

That's why I put this up here. We'll just put Nebu dies, the death of Nebuchadnezzar. That's year 562 BC. And so, in the meantime, his son took over. He didn't do too well. Two other kings took over, and they were short-lived. They just were not up to the example of Nebuchadnezzar. We're not going to worry about their names although the son of Nebuchadnezzar has this name called Evil-Merodach. Can you imagine naming your kid Evil-Merodach? I don't know. It must have really had a sweet-smelling savor in Babylon or something like that. I don't know how. That's the way it comes down to us.

Anyway, we come into Chapter 7, and we're at the year 553 BC. Now, just for the record, Babylon falls in the year 539, okay? And so we've got a few years to go from the time of this to the actual fall of Babylon 539. But this is Chapter 7. All right, so this is where we are. And it says that Belshazzar is the king of Babylon. Now, technically, he is kind of a co-regent, in other words, a co-king with his father whose name is Nabonidus. I'll put that on the board. Nabonidus. He's the real king, but he's kind of off in the various regions of the land. He's not in Babylon. The history that we do know about him, we know a little bit about Nabonidus, he liked to rebuild ancient temples. He was kind of an archaeologist, restorer of the ancient things if you will.

And the stories are that he kind of fell afoul of the priesthood of the chief deity in Babylon, Marduk, and by paying attention to temples of other gods, goddesses that had gone into, you know...they'd been just derelict and in disrepair. And he spent time fixing them up. And so he was more interested in that than taking care of business in Babylon. So he left it to his son, Belshazzar. That's why we see him in the biblical record. He is the one there. And we will see him in Chapter 5 because it is at what is called Belshazzar's feast that the handwriting on the wall comes out. And we'll introduce the whole series here on Daniel by going to Daniel 5, if you remember.

And so we're in this first year of Belshazzar in this particular time when Daniel has a dream and he writes down the dream and telling the facts. Now, the dream that Daniel has is parallel to that of Chapter 2 and the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had of the image. And, again, refer you back to the pictures and our time there in Chapter 2. The head of gold, the chest of silver, the brass, and then the iron, those four elements of this great image. We talked about those empires representing Babylon, Persia... Babylon, Persia... Anyone? Anyone?

[Man 1] Rome.

[Woman] Greece.

[Man 2] Greece.

[Darris McNeely] Nope. Greece and Rome. Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. You just get that in your head, make up an acronym, whatever it takes for you to know that because you need to know that, the sequential order...in order of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. And now, Daniel has a dream. So this is his dream, and it is going to give more information to the dream of Nebuchadnezzar or to that image or to those empires. And so that's what we are moving into with Daniel 7. He's drilling deeper. We're going to look at it that way.

Let me make a comment about this as people are watching this later on online and down the road. We will put information on the website to go along with a lot of this. But the charts that I'm handing out here in class, the booklets that I've also recommended in our studies here that we have as part of our United Church of God Booklet Library, "The Final Superpower," being one that we've talked about here, lays out, in general, the prophetic scenario that we find here in Daniel and in the book of Revelation as we have historically, traditionally, understood it and taught it within the Church of God, beginning way back in the Radio Church of God, Worldwide Church of God period, now into the United Church of God. That's what this represents.

And as we dig deeper into the heads and the horns of these beasts and these images, I know and I'm well aware that there are alternative ideas that people have come up with through the years about what they all represent within our own church, and as well in the larger scholarly community this has happened as well. Depending upon your particular biblical persuasion out in the greater Christian world, whether you're a premillennialist, an amillennialist, or a postmillennialist, three terms that I have yet to introduce to you. Just for the record we in the Church of God are premillennial, in that, we believe that Christ will return pre or before the millennium and then the thousand years will ensue.

There are others that think that Christ comes after the millennium. That is those who are postmillennial. Then there are those that feel that the teaching about the millennium in the Bible is just a...they spiritualize it away as a metaphor. It's not literal. They don't take it literally. Those are amillennialists. But we are premillennialists, and we have a definite understanding of the sequence of events in world history, end-time history based on Daniel and Revelation. And we have taught that pretty consistently through the years. I think consistently is probably the better way to put it.

But other scholars will have differing ideas. For instance, within the scholarly world, there's a line of thought that does not accept or they don't interpret the fourth image, fourth beast of Daniel 7 or the fourth part of the image of Daniel 2 as Rome. And those people, generally, fall into a category of people who do not believe that Daniel was a literal figure in the 6th century BC, and, rather, that the book of Daniel was written by a 2nd-century Jew, some 300 to 400 years later, and he writes history in retrospect. Because the idea is nobody from the year 603 or whatever could have foreseen the rise of Rome and the sequence of empires. In other words, predictive history according to God's Revelation. And that's rejected by critical scholarship.

All right, conservative biblical scholars do accept and teach, just as we accept and teach, that the fourth beast is Rome, the fourth part of the image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream in Chapter 2 of Daniel is Rome. And that God did predict that through Daniel, who was a literal character living when the Book says that he did. One key biblical proof for that, to verify that Daniel was who he said he was.

 Matthew 24:15 Where Jesus in His Olivet prophecy references the abomination of desolation. He says, "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, the abomination of desolation is standing in the holy place, spoken of by Daniel the prophet."

Jesus attested to the fact that Daniel wrote about this idea called the abomination of desolation which we've yet to get into. And so if Jesus says Daniel was, then it was because Jesus, we accept as certainly, you know, the account is historical and true and we accept Christ as our Savior and without sin. If Jesus said Daniel said it and it's not true, then Jesus was a liar and He sinned, okay? So that's the logic that you have to follow. We don't believe Jesus lied. We do believe that what He said in Matthew 24:15 is true. And so that's from an apologetic standpoint, you're taking your apologetics class and learning how to prove things. From an apologetic standpoint, that's one proof that the book of Daniel was written by Daniel in Babylon in the sixth century BC, and that is a book we can rely on. There are many other proofs, and I do want to go into some of those, probably, in a separate module.

And so to back this back to what I started, what I'm teaching you, and what I'm giving here is what we have always taught. And while I am aware that within our Church of God community, to bring it down to our level, there are all kinds of ideas that have been put forth as alternatives of explaining these beasts and these heads and these horns, particularly, the revivals of the Roman Empire after Rome. I have papers in my files from studies and discussions that we've had through the years in the doctrine prophecy committees of the Church, with some of those ideas that have been examined and studied by the doctrine prophecy committees and, essentially, not accepted. And we have felt that our understanding that we have traditionally had is correct or the best.

And, personally, I'll just say, I've not been convinced by anybody else's alternative ideas. I've studied them and was looking at one of them yesterday for a few minutes from going back a number of years ago, and I think that our understanding has stood the test of time. And if God has something else in mind, I think we'll come to that point in time post-resurrection or post-touchdown on Mount of Olives by Jesus Christ when we might say, "Oh, that's what you meant." All right, and so we always have to keep a measure of humility when it comes to these matters, while we do want to look at them with a degree of certainty to help us to understand the flow of prophecy, and especially prophecy in this particular time.

So those of you that may be watching this later that certainly want to engage me on anything, I welcome that. Send me your paper or whatever in that way and we can look at that because it's always a fascinating subject to discuss and to get into. Let's go on to verse 2.

Daniel 7:2-3 "Daniel spoke, saying, 'I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the Great Sea. And four beasts came up out from the sea, each different from the other.'"

All right, so here he's looking at a sea, and there is a...winds are stirring up the Great Sea. This is not understood to be the Mediterranean which is, if you will, the Great Sea. Even this map has the Great Sea on it right here, the Mediterranean Sea. But most commentators don't think that this is the geographical reference but that it represents the tumults of the peoples of the nations, of the lands that are of the earth. All right, and I think that is a much, much better way to understand what this represents. You can look at the sea to get a graphic, and this is brought out in this way, but it is speaking to commotions, activity among the nations, wars, migrations, movements of peoples, the rise and fall of empires, and ultimately, the wars that are created as one empire falls and another comes on.

And the beasts that come up represent land powers. They represent these Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and others, and so they've also got to represent the land from which they will arise which is, essentially, the world. The Scriptures don't tell us specifically what is the four winds, but it could be a symbol of the power of God striving with people. It could also be a reference to the four corners of the earth and speaking of these tumults coming from nations that represent from all parts of the world. And I think that that can be a good application. Especially, when you understand that at the time of the end with the final Babylon, the great that is to arise, what is described in Revelation 17 and 18, is a truly global power far beyond, let's say, just Rome or Babylon.

And I will say that that is an important thing to always keep in mind about the final Babylon at the time of the end. It is a global power that encompasses everything of the past but will be bigger and greater and more influential in the world than any that has taken place as well. And indications of the Scriptures show that it will be gathering up the powers of all of the nations for that one final satanic push to distort and overthrow and thwart the plan of God, which is the overarching theme of these powers that come up and that are used by Satan to advance his purpose within the world.

And so let's look at this first beast here or at this image. It says that there are four beasts and each are different.

Daniel 7:4 "The first was like a lion and had eagle's wings. And I watched till its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man. And a man's heart was given to it." 

And so that verse 4, basically, covers this first beast. This corresponds into the head of gold of Chapter 2 in that image. "The Expositor's Bible Commentary" makes this comment. It says, "The first of these beasts is a winged lion whose eagle-like pinions are soon plucked. So instead of flying, it stands on the ground. Pluck the feathers, the bird can't fly. A human heart is given to it. In the light of Nebuchadnezzar's career, it's clear that the plucking of the lion's wings symbolizes a reduction of his pride and power at the time of his insanity." Now, we read about his insanity, seven years of it, remember, in Chapter 4, okay? And so this plucking of the feathers, in that way, keeping it limited, they interpret it to that way.

"The lion symbol here," I'm going on with this quote, "was characteristic of Babylon, especially in Nebuchadnezzar's time when the Ishtar gate entrance was adorned on either side with a long procession of yellow lions on blue glazed brick, it fashioned in high relief." And I showed you pictures of that that I took from the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Germany, if you remember, this great Ishtar gate, and there are lions on that. And then this processional way that led out from or to the Ishtar gate, great parade ground.

If you think about the New Year's parades that we have, if you ever watch those on television and floats and bands and people walking by, the great processional way that led to the Ishtar gate in Babylon would have been the parade ground of Babylon. Triumphs, when the armies came back from carrying the spoils of war, or at festival times and religious occasions, people came out into the street, probably images and icons of Ishtar and other gods and goddesses parading back and forth in a time of festivity. But along the walls of that were lions. So the lion motif does fit this.

The Expositor's Commentary goes on to show that the final detail, the heart of a man was given to it, may refer to the restoration of Nebuchadnezzar's sanity after the seven-year dementia. And so the winged lion or the Babylonian Empire connection is acknowledged by many different biblical scholars. According to this quote, we brought that into our United Church of God Bible reading program. And other conservative commentators echo that and for many, many years, even before "The Expositor's Bible Commentary" and others were written. That's what we taught and others taught it before us as well.

You know, when I say others taught certain things, we can demonstrate that the Jews in the first century looked at that fourth beast and the fourth part of the image of Nebuchadnezzar, Josephus writes that the Jews understood in the first century that that was Rome. All right, so I say that just to help us understand that, you know, in the Church when we've come, when we have these teachings, we don't necessarily just pick this out of thin air and create it, make it up. There's a long, long tradition and in many parts of it going all the way back to the first century. The first-century Jews looked at the occupation of Rome there as the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecies in that part of the empire. Now, subsequent scholarship and critics argue and chew that up back and forth. But anyway, this is the first beast that rises up out of the sea.

Now, let's look at the second one.

Daniel 7:5 "Suddenly," verse 5, "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.'" 

All right, so here's the brief description of the second beast. And this corresponds with the chest and the arms of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, that of silver, okay? This beast now is raised up on one side. It suggests that also there's an involvement here between more than one powers. And the understanding has been that this raising up here is a symbol of the unity of the Persian Empire that was composed of Persians and a group of people called the Medes, M-E-D-E-S.

And you will often see this referred to as the Medo-Persian Empire. It may be that way on your paper in front of you, I didn't check for sure, Medo-Persian. But the dominant power was Persia. And this was Cyrus the Great. We've already talked about him. You are going through Nehemiah right now in your other class here. And, of course, Nehemiah is set during the time of the Persian Empire. Nehemiah is a cupbearer to the king, so Cyrus the Great.

And I've told you that remember him as, in a sense, the symbol or the personification of this empire. And I did mention as well that Persia gets pretty good press in the Bible. Cyrus is the one who issues the decree for the Jews to go back to Babylon, remember that. That's why you're studying Nehemiah going back to Persia. I said going from Babylon to Jerusalem. Let me correct myself there. That's why Nehemiah went back there. Cyrus the Great did that. And that's at the beginning of the book of Ezra.

And I should show you, and, well, when we get to the time of Daniel 5, something called the Cyrus Cylinder, which was put together by Cyrus and recounts his deeds, if you will. And so Persia gets a pretty good record in the biblical account with Esther and that story and the protection of the people and what was accomplished there. But it was still a beast-like empire that took down Babylon. And the dominant people here were the Persians, the Persian Empire here. Daniel here sees, as well, that this beast devours and has three ribs in its mouth. This is understood, generally, to be representing three different powers, three different kingdoms that they kind of gobbled up or ate. So that's why the bears got the three ribs hanging out.

You know, if you ever do real beef ribs with the rib in, those ribs can be pretty big and you're gnawing on those ribs. Anybody ever done that? That's one of my favorite picnic meals on the 4th of July. My mother-in-law used to do a big batch of ribs, and you just get greasy and full of barbecue sauce, but they're so good. They're just delicious. And I think maybe even my son hung one out of his mouth one time just to say that he could or did. Probably heard dad talking about this particular prophecy. So the three ribs are representing an empire named Lydia, Babylon, and Egypt. And Persia conquered all three of them.

All right, I can show you kind of on the map here. Persia comes out of the east here and takes over Babylon. But before that, they went up into what is today Turkey up here, a little bit up off the map, and that's where the Kingdom of Lydia was. Just here's where you make a connection. So kind of put this in your notes mentally or otherwise. The Kingdom of Lydia that Cyrus conquered before he went down to Babylon and conquered that, he conquered a king named Croesus. And any of you ever heard of King Midas, the story of King Midas and the golden touch?

Okay, well, Croesus was a literal... Midas is a fiction, but he's represented by a literal king called Croesus, who was very wealthy because there was a lot of gold in his kingdom and he was the king of Lydia. In fact, Cyrus the Great defeated him. Croesus' kingdom's capital was at a place called Sardis. Anybody ever heard the name Sardis? Okay. Sardis we will talk about in Revelation 2 as one of the locations of a congregation. One of the seven churches of Revelation, one of them was Sardis, actually, Revelation 3. But there's an interesting story regarding that, but that's where Cyrus took care of, you know, in that way. So you've got to make a connection there. And then Babylon and then Egypt. So those are the three ribs that are the understanding of the symbol here that Persia took over, rising and devouring much.

Now, this empire went on for about 200 years until we come to the time of the 3rd empire. So 539 would be, technically, well, that's the fall of Rome and, you know, probably that's when you would mark the beginning of its empire. But about 200 years later another empire arises that is this 3rd beast that comes up in verse 6.

Daniel 7:6 "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 and dominion was given to it." 

This is understood to be the empire of Greece, and it parallels the third section of the image of Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 2, of bronze. Keep in mind as we go down that image, we go from the quality of gold to silver, now to bronze. We decrease in quality while we decrease, if you will, in the hardness of the elements. And that can help us to understand, let's say, the power of these successive kingdoms and their reach throughout the world in terms of land and what they did gobble up. So this third one is like a leopard with four wings of a bird, four heads, and dominion is given to it. This beast is understood to portray the Greek empire, especially, that of Alexander the Great who comes out of Greece with his father's army, which his father had been assassinated. His father was a guy named Philip II.

And I can tell you that the story of Alexander's birth, his mother who was a snake worshiper, slept in her bed with snakes, was a devotee of the god Dionysus, and loved snakes. Indiana Jones would not have gotten along with her, all right? And the stories about her relationship with Philip, the father of Alexander, are legion and fascinating to understand. It was not a good family. It was what we would call a highly dysfunctional family. But Alexander's mother loved him, doted on him. His father began to look at him a little bit like a rival.

There's an interesting side note to history that on the night of Alexander's birth... Way over here in the city of Ephesus, which is up over here, we'll study Ephesus in Acts and later in Revelation, there was a temple to the goddess Artemis, a great temple to the female deity Artemis or Demeter. She was a goddess of fertility, reproductivity, and she's also portrayed as a huntress. But there's a story that seems to be true from history that on the night Alexander was born that temple was burned down. And the story is that the goddess left her temple, went all the way over to Greece or Macedonia to assist, kind of like a midwife, in the birth of Alexander the Great.

And so when Alexander comes through Ephesus, when he's gobbling up his empire, a few years later they haven't rebuilt that temple. He offers to rebuild the temple out of his own pocket change. And the priests say, "No, one god shouldn't rebuild the temple of another god," they say. They looked at Alexander as a god. And Alexander began to believe the press about himself and the reputation, and he looked at himself. The idea was that he was, you know, birthed by a god through his mother as you get into those fables there. That's why the Greek Empire, and we're going to study it in more detail in Chapter 8, is a fascinating one.

But the speed and the swiftness of Alexander's conquering of the Persian empire fits this leopard with wings. And, literally, within just a few years, Alexander came into this part of the world. I'll put this other map over here to kind of show that for you. He came out of Greece into Anatolia, what is today Turkey, and he just began to roll back the Persian empire. And he conquered all this area and went all the way over to India, what is today India. But he did that in just a few short years. And so it was a speedy conquest, and that's represented by the wings, the dominion given to it.

The four heads that it has have a different distinction. The four heads of this empire are understood to represent the division of Alexander's empire after his death. And I'll just say this at this point, he divided his empire or it was divided among four generals. And out of two of those sections, two of those generals, come dynasties that are important to the prophetic flow of Daniel, which we'll study in Chapter 11 more. But I'll say that and get into that more in Chapter 8 because Chapter 8 kind of blows this up in more detail. So this is where we go with the third leopard, and we will talk more about that in Chapter 8.

Now, let's go on to the fourth beast here in verse 7, all right?

Daniel 7:7 "'After I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful, terrible, 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 10 horns.'" 

And this is one of our own pieces of artwork to represent this fourth beast here in front of you. A fierce creature. You know, it's kind of portrayed here kind of like a triceratops with, you know, modified triceratops. He went to the chop shop and they added some more armor to him and a few more horns to make him look like we have here.

Iron teeth, strong as iron. It devours, notice what is said. This beast gets a lot of attention in Daniel's description. He's dreadful. And if that's not bad enough, he's terrible. And if that's, okay, you don't get the point, he's exceedingly strong, all right? And he has huge iron teeth, hence, the connection to the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, the two legs of iron, as well as the feet of iron and clay. And with that all, he devoured broken pieces, trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had 10 horns. And so it gets the longest description, if you will, the most graphic description, and we identify this fourth beast as Rome. And I am convinced to the furthest point of my itty bitty toes on my feet that that's correct, all right?

And I've studied that pretty intensely through the years, looked at it from all different perspectives, read the papers, and looked at the alternative presentations by other scholars and biblical teachers on the topic. And, to me, if you're looking at history, this is nothing that's, like, more. Now, why would a critic say that it's not? Here's what a critic does. The critics will divide the second beast, and I remember I said the Medo-Persian, they will assign that to two separate empires, all right? And making the Greek Empire then the fourth. And they just dismiss the idea of Rome here in this. And so that's the critical scholarly view because Daniel could not have seen that far forward into time.

And from a worldly scholastic point of view, you would say, "Okay, I understand why they believe it." You have to throw God out of the picture. You have to throw the fact that God controls history. But at the time of Daniel, sitting in Babylon having this dream, Rome was nothing. It wasn't an empire. It wasn't even a country. It was barely a city. Now, Rome is way over here on the Italian peninsula. Some of you have been to Rome probably. It's right here. And Rome represented on this map by this lighter color, you know, took over all of the Mediterranean world, went way up into what is today England and Scotland, and over along the Rhine and Germany and everything south. It was a very large empire and reached well up into Europe.

But at the time of Daniel seeing this vision, it was nothing more than some huts made of thatch, sticks, maybe mud, on the banks of the Tiber River. There's no Roman Colosseum. There is no Roman pantheon. There's no Roman picture that we, typically, understand when we think about Rome. It was nothing. And they had a measly little king, and they were still kind of forming up as a kind of a village. But that village was destined for big things. That village began to devour, break in pieces, just like Daniel's vision says, "With iron teeth, broke in pieces, and it trampled." They began to do all of that among all of their neighbors. When you study Roman history, they went to war with everybody. There was something about the Roman, this group of people called Romans, that when they set their mind to it, they won. And even when their armies, such as they were as they developed, were with their backs against the wall, facing near defeat, they dug deep and found something to continue on and to push back their enemy and beat them. They didn't lose. And they built on every success.

And they, eventually, created a system here. They went over into Spain, and then they began to march eastward through the years. And they then gobbled up after the time of... By the time of the second century BC, they're over here. And late in the second century, they're invited down to Jerusalem because the Jews couldn't get along. And, literally, the Jews couldn't get along among themselves. And the Roman armies were over here. And they said, "Hey, will you come down here and help us? Just kind of restore some order, police the streets."

There was a Roman general named Pompey, Pompey the Great. And he said, "Sure, the better to eat you, my dear." And so he descended upon Jerusalem. And guess what? They brought order. They cleaned up the streets, but they stayed. And they took over Jerusalem, which is why when you open the pages of the New Testament, you find that Joseph and Mary are going down to Bethlehem because of the census of the Roman emperor. And so Rome has gone from a bunch of huts to this big empire. And they did exactly what Chapter 7, verse 7, says they did. And it's a fascinating story, which is why you will still see books and movies, mini-series streaming and otherwise about Rome.

How many of you have seen the movie "Gladiator?" They're making "Gladiator II," I understand. It's supposed to be coming out, second version of that, a sequel. Every month, some historian publishes a new book about Rome. I have two shelves on my library at home just of books about Rome. You think I like Rome? I do. I like to study Rome. And that's just a drop in the bucket to the number of books that are out there. And they're still coming out. They're still studying Rome, which to me, really tells something. I always relate things like that, phenomena like that back to the Bible. Why is this fascination with Rome hanging on all these years later? Well, they had significant influence upon the world then and now. Biblically, they had a significant influence too. I've already talked to you about the peace that they brought. What was that peace called?

[Woman] The Pax Romana.

[Darris McNeely] The Pax Romana. They imposed with their will of iron a peace upon the world of their day. And it was with a rod of iron. God makes a little play off of that when He talks about Christ ruling the nations with a rod of iron in His Kingdom. That rod of iron from God will bring a peace that will last through eternity, and it will be a peace based on love. The iron peace that Rome imposed upon the world did allow for, let's say, the timing of the birth of Jesus, the beginning of the Church, and the spread of the gospel in the first century, but it was a hard-earned peace.

And no one dared buck it or go against it, or they would incur the wrath of the Roman legions. And they would come down on them like a dreadful, terrible beast, just get their iron teeth in them, devour them, whether it was a group of slaves under Spartacus that rebelled, or later in the account of the Jews, a group of just troublesome, pesky Jews who can't get along among themselves and can't accept the fact that they are under the grace of Rome and just get used to it.

All right. If you remember the movie "Gladiator," one of the great lines at the beginning when the, I think it's the second to the general, turns and says, as they're looking at this Germanic horde coming out of the woods at them, "People should know when they're beaten." He says, "People should know when they're beaten." That kind of epitomizes Rome. People should appreciate being beaten and under our rule. Well, the Jews, eventually, didn't and had problems with it, and that led to the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in 70 AD.

So to answer my question, why is there this fascination with Rome? Well, I'll conclude with this in this section, then we'll come back in the next class and pick it up. The 10 horns that are on this beast, as we'll see, represent 10 revivals of Rome through history to the timing of the return of Christ in broad form. And it influences European history, all of the history of the area we're talking about, these revivals. They even influence to a degree, our lands here in America through one of those revivals. The next to the last horn that has already happened took part in a global war called World War II that is still being studied by scholars and is still having its influence upon our world today.

And, prophetically, we look for the fulfillment of that last horn to be in this Babylon the Great of this woman riding the beast that I've shown you that picture of the end time system. We look for that one final revival. So sometimes I wonder this fascination that is in the public eye in so many different ways, there's something there that has been planted in the mind of people and populations. And it does tie to the Bible, does tie to prophecy, does tie to the future.

We'll continue on. We'll pick this up... Seven verses in one class, that's the way it is when you're dealing with this particular part of the topic of Daniel. So we'll pick it up here in the next class.