10: World News & Prophecy - Daniel 7:8-23

[Darris McNeely] All right, here we are. Welcome back to Daniel 7. Consider this part two of Daniel 7 for those of you that are watching this later in the video series. We got through the first seven verses of Chapter 7 with Daniel's dream of these four beasts that come up. And we are at the fourth beast, that at the end of verse 7…

Daniel 7:7 It says, “That it was different from all the beasts that were before it and it had 10 horns.” 

So, we'll start moving, and we do want to cover the remainder of the chapter in this session so we've got a lot of material to cover. And I'm sorry but the fire hose is still in my hands and so we're going to be putting out a fire hose. So, buckle up and make sure the seat bag light is on and let's get going here. Daniel continues on in verse 8.

Daniel 7:8 "I was considering the horns," these 10 horns of this beast, "and there was another horn, a little one coming up among them, before whom 3 of the first horns were plucked out by the roots. And there in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking pompous words." 

Now, we've got to unpack this. There's a lot in this verse right here to consider. So he's considering the horns, there are 10 of them, and they represent...on your chart, you can go to that and kind of follow along. These 10 horns represent 10 stages of Rome in succession as we follow along. And the wording here, the way they're placed here, what is said about these horns as we move along help us to understand.

Let's go ahead and jump over to verse 24. As Daniel interprets this, it might be good to do that at this point in time. 

Daniel 7:24-25 He says, "The 10 horns are 10 kings, who shall arise from this kingdom, and another shall rise after them. He shall be different from the first ones and shall subdue three kings. He shall speak pompous words against the Most High and shall persecute the saints of the Most High and shall intend to change times and law. Then the saints shall be given into his hand for time and times and half a time." 

So Daniel begins to unpack, and we'll just use his words to begin to unpack what we begin to read here in verse 8. So let's kind of loop it back here, and I know I've skipped over other material, but we'll bring that back in. But Daniel interprets this by 10 kings that will arise from this kingdom, this kingdom being the big beast the great and dreadful, terrible one we've identified as Rome, the Roman Empire. Now, we've already studied that in bits and pieces with Daniel 2 and in other ways as we've been going through the book of Acts, but here's another date for you to know, and this is an important one. Remember I told you in the last class that Rome started out as a little village over here on the Tiber River, gobbled up everything, comes down into Jerusalem.

What you should understand about Rome, here's a brief history of Rome in just a very short period of time, this beast called Rome is divided into two phases. One is called the republic, and this represents a period of time from roughly, let's say, the late 500s until the 1st century BC. Rome was a republic. It didn't have an emperor, it was not an empire. That's what you should understand. They had a loose constitution with a lot of laws, they had religion, they had legions and armies, and a lot of history.

But they had kicked out their early kings very early. They didn't want a king. And they elected every year two men to kind of run the business of Rome. These were called consuls. And they elected two of them every year. Come January, they got two more. They didn't want power concentrated. And these consuls with the senate constituted the republic until after a period of time. Look, every good thing kind of runs its course and people start to squabble. Rome broke out into civil war in the late second century into the first century BC, comes to a head under a man named Julius Caesar. We've already mentioned him, that's a name from history.

Julius Caesar, the man who crossed what river?

[Together]vThe Rubicon.

[Darris McNeely] The Rubicon. He defied the senate. He declared himself kind of an emperor. Well, he got killed. He was assassinated on what is called the Ides of March, March 15th, in the senate, his good friends, Brutus, and others. The republic is dead. Rome erupts into civil war. A few years later, Julius Caesar's adopted son named Octavian wins, and he founds the empire, and he takes the name...?

[Man] Augustus.

[Darris McNeely] Augustus. And so begins the Roman Empire. It's very late in the first century. And this is the empire we read about in the New Testament story. So Rome has two epic periods, the republic and the empire. The empire goes along for about 400 years. It divides. Remember we talked about Constantine, the great emperor who goes over here and founds a new city called Constantinople. The empire is so big, so unwieldy, it has to be divided into two with two capitals. He creates a new city called Constantinople, today called Istanbul. And these likely are those two legs of that image of Daniel 2. And that continues through the 300s but corruption, decay, decadence, everything winds down. And, finally, in the year 476 AD, Rome, the city here falls, it's overrun by Germanic tribes. That's a big part of the story.

So, essentially, what we say is the western part of the empire collapses with the capital of Rome. But the empire in the east continues on. Constantinople doesn't fall. The area that it reigns over still goes. In fact, Constantinople goes on and the Roman Empire really lasted another thousand years until the year 1453. So, technically, when we go to the year 476, it's the fall of Rome, the city, and the western empire, okay? So prophetically, and for our purposes here in Daniel, when we start to look at these 10 horns, we are looking at the history then of this empire in its western part and the revivals, 10 of them represented by those 10 horns from the time taken when the city is overrun by some Germanic tribes, okay?

So that brings us back here to where we are looking here at verse 24 where it says that the 10 horns or 10 kings that arise from this kingdom. Historically, we can trace multiple revivals of the empire in the west. We don't have that in the east. That's why we don't look at that from the prophetic perspective, okay? Constantinople will fall to the armies of Islam in the year 1453. That's a fabulous story in itself as well and what happens. But there is no sense of revivals of Rome, the Roman system, the Roman Empire like we have after the fall of Rome with Catholicism, the Roman papacy, and its hold over here and its influence, particularly, in Europe which is why we follow that line of historical progression for these 10 kings. That's about as simple I think as I can put that.

And the story is told in the book, "The Final Superpower," in a bit more detail and laid out for you there and represents the prophetic narrative that we have in the church of God. All right, I like to call it the received prophetic narrative, RPN. That's another acronym you might want to remember. We have a received prophetic narrative or story and I'm telling it to you. As I said in the other class, this is what we have taught for years. I was given this chart when I was a student at Ambassador College in a different form. We didn't have color printing back then. We just had styluses and clay tablets. But the same information was on the chart that I had. It was in black and white. You know before 1968, you didn't have color, or, you know, it's the way it was until NBC Peacock comes along and... Anyway, that's a bad joke. You might want to edit that one out.

This is the narrative that we have, and this is what I'm telling you. And as I said earlier, we could be wrong. But to quote Charles Barkley, "I don't think so." I don't think we're wrong, okay? So always allow a little bit, you know, like I said, after touchdown on the Mount of Olives, we'll know the whole story. But I think in the broad form, I think we do understand it. And it allows us to stay abreast of the world story and the progression of Bible prophecy as we go along here. All right. So with that, let's look at verse 25.

Well, before I do that, let me just call attention that…

Daniel 7:24 Says, "There are 10 kings who will arise from this kingdom, and another shall rise after them. He shall be different from the first ones and shall subdue three kings." 

The picture of the beast that you have on the screen and in front of you with this fourth beast shows 3 horns, the first 3 of the 10, and a little horn, which is what is being described here in verse 8. And before the three of the first horns, there comes this little horn with eyes like a man and a mouth speaking pompous words. And that little horn plucks out the others by the roots.

Here, in brief, is how we interpret that. With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the year 476, overrun by Germanic tribes, there are 3 dominant Germanic tribes listed on your chart that carve up parts of this empire over a period of time. They're called the Vandals, the Heruli, and the Ostrogoths. All right. Just look at them as biker gangs that come riding out of the north territory with skull caps and masks and everything. And they were not nice people, but they wanted land, they wanted what Rome had, so they came down and took it over. They didn't regard any borders. Rome stopped defending its border. You ever hear about anything like that today? A nation that stops defending or preserving a border, i.e., the United States on its southern border? Well, Rome stopped doing that for years and these Germanic tribes just came in. And three of them are of north, those three that I mentioned. Each one represents these three different first three horns.

And the little horn that has the eyes like a man speaking pompous words, we identify that as the papacy, the Roman Catholic Church papacy, or the RCC, Roman Catholic Church, okay? Real brief, the Bishop of Rome from the earliest days of the church story ultimately becomes a very powerful figure in the first few 100 years of the church's story. And Bishop of Rome is not the pope in the early years, but the whole system begins to build around Rome. I told you the other day in class that we can trace that in Rome probably is where they began keeping Sunday, where the church of God began keeping Sunday late in the first century A.D. We know that from history. So a lot of bad things began in Rome.

In the second century, they start keeping Easter. And one of the ministers from over here in Asia Minor goes to Rome to have a meeting with the Bishop of Rome and say, "Hey, we're still keeping Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread over here. Why are you guys now keeping Sunday and Easter?" Well, they agree to disagree, but Rome, eventually, wins and their heresy takes over the church and becomes ultimately with other doctrinal changes including the Trinity, the Roman Catholic Church, or the papacy. Now, it's not the global papacy we know today. It's not the wealth and power of the Catholic Church we know today. That grows and develops through the years. But the institution is there and I think that when we identify, and others have as well, this little horn as the papacy, I think we're on firm ground historically and biblically. Go back to Daniel 7:25 where Daniel interprets this little horn. 

Daniel 7:25 He says, "He shall speak pompous words against the Most High," that's God. Or another translation says, "He shall speak as if he were God." 

That's the Adam Clarke Commentary, a very old commentary that actually gets it pretty well. He shall speak as if he were God, not just against God but as if he were God. You understand anything about the papacy? There's this idea called when the pope speaks on doctrine, he speaks ex cathedra, meaning from the chair, from the throne. And it's with an authority for the entire church as if he were speaking for God. Now, we don't do that, obviously, in our church, in the Church of God. But that's how Catholic teaching and doctrine develop and the power concentrated in this individual. First called the Bishop of Rome, then over time becoming the pope and with much greater power and expansion speaks as if he were God.

And it says, "He shall persecute the saints of the Most High." In time, the Catholic Church with the help of the political government begin to persecute those holding teachings contrary to the church. And that begins quite early, earlier than sometimes people think. It actually begins in the 300s with the Trinity teaching. I didn't cover that part with you in our teaching about the Trinity, but that's where it begins. The church in the 380s, 390s AD, when they locked in the Trinity, and if you didn't believe that and accept it, you were locked out of the church. If you kept teaching it, you could be killed. More people died in the subsequent years over the issue of the Trinity than were killed in the Colosseum at Rome by lions during the Roman Empire.

The Trinity teaching became a very, very critical one. And if you didn't believe it, the church would kill you for it, the Catholic Church. And so very early on, with the help of the government, the political system, they had some power. Sometimes people try to say that, well, looking at Daniel and this little horn, well, the papacy wasn't fully... No, no. The church had power when it became wedded to the state. And that begins late in the 4th century AD, the late 300s. And so when it says that they will persecute the saints of the Most High and intend to change times and law, that's speaking of the Sabbath, that's speaking of taking on festivals onto a religious calendar other than the calendar of God that define God's festivals and a whole lot of other. All Saints' Days and other rituals that were imported from paganism.

Daniel 7:25 Says, "Then the saints shall be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time." 

And we interpret that as three and a half years. A time is understood biblically as a biblical year. And so you have one time and times, the least it could be would be two, in plural, and half a time. And as we look at Revelation 12 and Revelation 11, we see that time, times, and half a times is the equivalent of 3-and-1/2 years or 1,260 days in a prophetic year. And that's another topic that I haven't introduced to you yet, but that's it in a nutshell. So what we're looking at the end of verse 25 is, "The saints will be given into his hand for time, times, and half a time."

And that's speaking forward into the time of the tribulation prior to Christ's coming. It can be understood there as well. As well as other times of persecution upon the people of God, of the church, and others who may not have been a part of the church but still held ideas that were contrary to the accepted Orthodox teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and considered heretical. All right, so we're looking at this little horn here speaking pompous words going back to verse 8.

Daniel 7:8 "Eyes like that of a man and a mouth speaking pompous words." 

All right. So here let me lay one more thing down on you because we have a little horn here in Chapter 7. All right. And who will we say that it is? Let's call it the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church, okay? So it's a religious horn. In Chapter 8, we're going to see another horn. I'm going to tell you it's a different horn. It's a political figure. It's a king. So what I'm saying is over these two chapters, we're going to see two little horns. And so understand this first horn in Chapter 7 to be that of the papacy. We'll come back to the other and kind of review that when we get into Chapter 8. So let's go back to verse 9. And let's pick up the interpretation...or, actually, in this case, Daniel inserts a vision of the Ancient of Days. And so this is kind of an insert beginning with verse 9.

Daniel 7:9 "'I watched till thrones were put in place and the Ancient of Days was seated.'"

What he's seeing is a vision of the throne of God. The Ancient of Days, I'll just go ahead and we'll just jump right to it, must represent the Father, all right? God the Father. So he's seeing a vision of this here. And it's a vision. Keep that in mind. That's important to understand in terms of just what he's looking at and how we understand other things. 

Daniel 7:9-12 But, "Garment was white as snow. The hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame. Its wheels a burning fire." And immediately you connect to Ezekiel 1 and Isaiah 6, the prophet's visions of the throne of God, wheels within wheels. Fire, "A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him. Thousands, thousands ministered to Him. Ten thousand times 10,000 stood before Him and the court was seated." It's a vision of these spirit beings, angels, and spirit beings that are all there. "The court was seated and the books were open. 'And I watched them because of the sound of the pompous words which the horn was speaking, the little horn of earlier. And I watched till the beast was slain and its body destroyed and given to the burning flame. And for the rest of the beast, they had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.'" 

Now, this is in the vision here Daniel has. He's seeing this persecution going on, but ultimately the beast is killed or the system. This is the fourth beast. The totality of it is destroyed, given to the burning flame. In Revelation, we'll read about a beast and false prophet being thrown into the lake of fire at the end of the tribulation at the return of Christ. And so this matches up with that. As for the rest of the beast, they had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time.

And so this refers to the fact that the previous beast, their time of world dominion or dominion was taken, yet they were prolonged for a season and a time through this fourth beast which then ultimately is going to be destroyed at Christ's coming. So what we're seeing is the result of what we have always looked at as the fifth kingdom of these two stories, which is the Kingdom of God. 

Daniel 7:13 He says, "I was watching in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven. And He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him." 

Now, at this point in the vision, Daniel sees a different figure called one like the Son of Man. And what he is seeing is a picture of Christ coming with the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days brought near before Him.

Daniel 7:14 "To Him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and His kingdom, the one which shall not be destroyed." 

And so he is seeing then at the throne of God this appearance of the Ancient of Days, one like the Son of Man. Now, this phrase, one like the Son of Man in Daniel is quoted by Christ in the New Testament. In Matthew 24:30...well, actually Mark 13:26, Christ was talking about His return to the earth. 

Mark 13:26 "And it will be in clouds with great power and glory," 

Matthew 24:30 Christ says that, “He will come on the clouds of the sky.” 

Again, a direct allusion to what is said here in Daniel 7. And then in Matthew 26:64, again, Jesus is pictured as sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven. And so this is a very beautiful picture used by Jesus multiple times in His teaching which links Him to what Daniel sees of one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days to receive the kingdom. Now, we'll read about this again in Revelation about Christ's return and the dominion that He gives as He replaces the kingdoms of this world. And so in a sense, this is a vision then that Daniel has of the throne of God and he is seeing something yet to occur, yet to take place. And the emphasis here is quite strong, quite direct of God's kingdom that is going to come, that final kingdom as the Ancient of Days here and Christ. So it's another one of these images or visions from the Old Testament of, if you will, in this case, the pre-existent Christ at least at Daniel's time.

And Daniel's seeing it in a vision at the time of the end or of that moment when He comes and He has given that and the kingdom is one that will not be destroyed. You recall what is said about the stone cut without hands that destroys the image of Nebuchadnezzar on its feet. It shatters that kingdom, scatters it to the winds, and then it grows to fill the entire earth and there is no end there as well. And Daniel 2:44, says, "That kingdom is not going to be left to other people." And here in Daniel 7, it speaks of this being a kingdom with everlasting dominion, those that will serve Him, and it will not be destroyed. He goes on, let's go ahead to verse 15.

Daniel 7:15-18 Daniel said, "'I was grieved in my spirit, within my body. The visions of my head troubled me. I came near to one of those who stood by and asked him the truth of all this. So He told me and made known to me the interpretation of these things. These great beasts which are four, are four kings which arise out of the earth.'" So we've already covered that. Verse 18, "'But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever.'" 

So there you want to kind of put in your margins Daniel 2:44, where it says, "The kingdom will not be left to other people." And so here's, to kind of put this together, the little horn speaks pompous words as if he were like God and certainly against God and he persecutes the saints. And that speaks to the position of God's church through the ages, the persecutions that have always been there, and even the persecution that will be at the end of the age upon those who hold to the truth.

We get into that in Revelation in more detail. We are told that there will be martyrdom, there will be persecution. A sign of the church at the end of the age will be those who hold to truth and do not take part in this false religious system represented by that little horn that has arisen out of this final beast that has its roots in Babylon and is called in Revelation 17, mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots. So Daniel is being shown that the people of God are going to win ultimately, but there have been pockets of trouble, there will be one at the time of the end as well. And so ultimately the promise is to possess that kingdom.

You know, again, I put in a real short plug about the ultimate value of reading the book of Daniel. It goes far beyond, let's say, this understanding of these heads and beasts and horns and everything, and we're going to get deeper into all this imagery. But keep in mind overall that it is told from the perspective of Daniel in Babylon who is righteous, and his example is a model for us to tell us how to live righteously in the midst of our time in our world. And I call it a modern Babylon, a precursor to that final Babylon. But Daniel's example gives us encouragement to be courageous. It gives us instruction as to how to do it. We're going to read in Chapter 6 that he had the habit of praying three times a day. Three times a day. Three times a day, that's what he did.

How did he survive the lion's den? How did he stand up to the beast? Because he walked into the office of the beast, Nebuchadnezzar. How did he hold to his integrity and his faith? Prayed three times a day. Had a relationship with God. Didn't compromise his faith, his values, what he believed, even when he could have profited from it. And he was given, and through his words he gives to us, encouragement as to, hey, it's worth it. It's worth it. Is it worth it to you, to me, anybody watching here later on the video? Is it worth it? Well, I've been at it for over 60 years, and I say it's worth it. I say I'd do it again. I would do it all over again. No regrets as to how I've chosen to live my life. Yeah, it's worth it because of this and the multiple other promises of God's faithfulness, God's guidance with us, but ultimately we're going to possess that kingdom forever. It's worth it. That's why Daniel is a very important and valuable book for us to study.

So we've covered the first three horns and the little horn. We've got seven more to talk about. I'll do that in the last class. But let me just conclude here...or in the next class, which won't be the last class, but let's just finish the rest of this. Verse 19, I found to be fascinating. I told you earlier, I've got two shelves of books in my home about Rome. I still buy them, you know, and I still watch movies that come out about Rome and documentaries and things that I... I'm fascinated. I've made several trips over there. I've been through Turkey a few times and Roman Empire was over there.

The joke with my son and I on where we should go for the feast or where we might want to go, I always ask him, "Was Rome there?" And if he says, "No." I say, "I'm not interested." So he said, "We're going to Mexico for the feast a year or two ago." I said, "Was Rome there?" "No." "I'm not interested." Now, I've been to other places where Rome wasn't, but it's become kind of our in-house joke. And I take it from verse 19. I'm getting to a point here because here's what Daniel says.

Daniel 7:19 "Then I wish to know the truth about the fourth beast." Now, that's Rome. He didn't want to know the truth about the third beast, the second beast, the first beast. He said, "I want to know the truth about the fourth beast, which was different from all the others."

I love that line from "A Few Good Men." Tom Cruise has Jack Nicholson on the ropes in the courtroom. And they're yelling back and forth. And Jack Nicholson says, "You can't handle the truth." Tom Cruise says, "I want the truth." "You can't handle the truth." I love that scene. Daniel wanted to know the truth. I want the truth about the fourth beast. Why? Why that one? 

Daniel 7:19-20 “Exceedingly dreadful, teeth of iron, nails of bronze, which devour broken pieces, trampled the residue with his feet and the 10 horns that were on his head, and the other horn which came up before the three, namely that horn which had eyes and a mouth and spoke pompous words.” 

He said, "I want to know that." 

Daniel 7:23 He says, "The fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all other kingdoms and shall devour the whole earth, trample it, and break it in pieces."

He gives a lot of time here in this description to this fourth beast. That's kind of what I want to know. I want to know the truth. I want to know the story of Rome. I want to know why it gets so much attention from Daniel. And then through that, I can understand a lot about the gospels, the New Testament background, things that are said by Paul in his writings that happened with Christ and the things that I read about in the Bible as cultural context and background that just drills deep and gives a deeper understanding, not just of Rome and not just of history and not just the first century but of biblical teaching about how we are to live. When I take tours, members on tours of Turkey and we go to these sites of Rome and all, I stand in a Roman theater and I explain what the importance of a Roman theater was. We'll see that in the book of Acts when Paul nearly gets killed in the amphitheater in Ephesus.

The amphitheater was the Cineplex of the day. It was the 86-inch television screen in the man cave. It was the entertainment focus of every respectable Roman city. And it's there that the plays were put on. It's there that a lot of civic events took place. But when you understand the way it was all constructed, when you understand what they did there with their plays and with their cultural indoctrination, they were passing along their Greco-Roman, Roman culture, thoroughly pagan. And you sat in the seats and you cheered and you were enthralled and you absorbed it just like we do when we go to the movies or we watch our favorite series. Whatever it might be, we stream it. We're drinking in our culture of our day. Don't kid yourself. You're drinking it in. I'm drinking it in. What's it doing to us? We're no different than those Romans sitting in those stone seats in those amphitheaters of the first century.

And I told my tour group, this is where the culture was passed on. And so there are things that Paul writes about in the book of Ephesians and Colossians, and he's teaching the church, don't be like these people. Don't run to riot with them. And in their mind, they're understanding their time and place. And Paul is saying, "Be careful." Watch out when you're sitting in the theater next week. You're being brought along in the culture. "Be different," he says. "Walk this way. Walk a different way," he tells them in Ephesus. That's why it's important to understand the truth of the fourth beast. I really think so. There's a lot of application today. All right, we didn't get into the other horns. Next class, we will get into the horns and then go on into Chapter 8. So we're not too bad. We're still making hay while the sun shines.