Daniel 8

What I want to do, and this is a very general sermon. I'm going to go through some scriptures. I'm not going to go through a lot of details in some of the scriptures. In some cases, what we'll do is I'll show you some PowerPoint explaining some verses in context. You can then study it on your own, because this is a conception sermon. There are certain sermons that we get into a verse, we tear it apart phrase by phrase, what it means, tie in other verses, look up the meaning of the words in the original language. Those kind of sermons are where we take it, we tear something apart. There are other sermons we do that we try to look at a big overview.

If you remember, when we went through some of you that were here, most of you were here, probably back in July, what I talked about was how Daniel 2, the image of Daniel 2, gives us a template. It is what we build off of in order to explain Revelation. Because if you don't have a starting point, then you can literally make up whatever you want.

It was very interesting. I just went through and I probably spent an hour yesterday just going through Internet sites, just typing in things about Daniel and Revelation and looking at different ideas that people had. Some of them were interesting, some of them were things I never thought of. But there was also a lot of information out there that is made up by the person. It's an interpretation. It all depends on where they start.

So our interpretation of this, what we believe, what we teach in the United Church of God, has a starting point. It is our basis. And I always read through what is your basis? What is your basis? Looking at a couple of the ideas that are becoming more and more prevalent, there's a lot of fear of Islam. And so there is, especially in the Protestant world, a belief that Islam is the beast, and that's growing. But is it? I'm not saying it's not a threat, it is.

In fact, that's a whole other message. There are all kinds of prophecies that have to do with the coming of the Messiah about the Arab nations. There are all kinds of prophecies about the Arab nations. There's an entire section of one of the prophets, just about Egypt alone. Obadiah has to do with the Elamites, the descendants of Esau. And it has to do a lot of Obadiah. There's a former latter fulfilled of it. It has to do with the coming of the Messiah and what's going to happen before that. So when we look at where those Arab nations play, where the part they play in prophecy, that's another subject.

But in the Islam of the beast, that's a legitimate question. Where do you start and how you build on that is how you come to that conclusion about that. So what I'm going to do today is let's go back, because it was clear back in July, I want to take a little time and recap what we covered in that sermon and in that Bible study I did. It was one of the Sabbaths where we have a Sabbath Bible study, so the two subjects were related.

And then take that on to where I wanted to go with part three. Look at this first slide, because what we talked about in the first slide was the Daniel II statue. Now remember, we went through this statue and we went through how each part of this statue was a prophetic message given to Nebuchadnezzar. And we know the starting point, because he tells Nebuchadnezzar, you're the head of gold.

And so we understand that the Babylonian empire was the head of gold in that statue. Then we went through how the chest and arms of silver was Persia. And actually during the time of Daniel, Persia destroyed Babylon. And so just like it was prophesied, and this is why, by the way, there are lots of scholars who believe that Daniel was written many, many, many years after Daniel lived.

That Daniel really didn't write it, because too many of the prophecies were too exact. So, well, it had to be somebody writing it later and pretending he was prophesied. But of course, since we believe that the Bible is inspired by God, we believe these actual prophecies took place. As we understand the fulfilled prophecies, it gives us a viewpoint of the next step. So, and we'll see in a minute that the next step, of course, was Greece. Daniel, even later in chapter 8, talks about Greece and how Greece would destroy Persia.

The last part of this prophecy is about a fourth empire that is iron that gets split in two and ends up being ten kings and a mixture of strength and weakness. And Greece, of course, was conquered by the Roman Empire, and so the iron was the Roman Empire. Now, what's interesting about Rome is that Rome simply adopted and absorbed not only the territories, but sometimes the customs of the other empires. Rome took over much of the area that had been the Babylonian Empire.

It had a huge army, like the Persian Empire. It had totally adopted into itself Greek culture. Greek culture actually was the main culture of the Roman Empire. It's the main language throughout the Roman Empire as far as commerce goes and education. So they absorbed the three empires that were before them, and they adapted them into their unique brand of rule by a rod of iron.

So they represented here as iron. Now, what's interesting, though, about this image is we understand that some form of the Roman Empire exists at the time of the coming of Christ. Now, the reason we know that is because of the explanation that was in Daniel 2. We covered that in detail that day, in that at the time of this empire, this rock that's not cut by hands comes down supernaturally, crushes the feet. The entire statue falls down and it crushes it up, and then the rock fills the whole earth.

And it's obvious what it's talking about is the coming of the Messiah that God sends to rule over the earth. So when we went through all that, we spent a whole hour just going through Daniel 2. It's quite obvious step by step. We know who the first kingdom was. We know who the second kingdom was. We know we find out in chapter 8 who the third kingdom was, and there's the fourth kingdom in success and succession.

So the prophecy becomes very clear. And, of course, the Roman Empire divided into two parts. At the end, before the coming of the Messiah, there will once again be a Roman Empire. And there will be ten kings involved, but it won't be totally cohesive. It won't be totally together. It'll be in conflict with itself. So that's what we got out of Daniel 2. A simple template that when we look at this, the rest of history – and it's interesting, from this point on, all the people of God, whether it be ancient Jews or the Church, was interacting with one of these empires.

They were always interacting with one of these empires, because eventually the Persians let the Jews go back home. Guess who conquered them next? The Greeks. When they overthrew the Greeks, guess who conquered them next? The Romans. And when Jesus came, whose heavy sandal – we say heavy boots in English. They didn't wear boots. Whose heavy sandal was on their throats? The Romans. And all through the writing of the New Testament, they were living under the Roman Empire. And of course then we know the Roman Empire split and two-dimensionally fell.

So we're waiting for that prophecy to be fulfilled, and that it is in the day of that empire. So it has to be a Roman Empire. Some form of the Roman Empire is reconstructed. There's ten nations involved, and it's destroyed by Christ. Then we went in the Bible study to Daniel 7.

So let's look at the next slide. We have the four beasts of Daniel 7. This is 50 years, by the way, about 50 years after Nebuchadnezzar's dream. We have this other vision that's given to Daniel. And he sees four animals, a lion with eagle's wings, a bear, a leopard, and a terrifying powerful beast. So there are four beasts. And you know by the context of this, let's go to Daniel 7.

Daniel 7. Once again, I just want to go back through what we covered in so much detail and just touch on it, because it's important. This is part three should have been done back in July. Verse 1 of Daniel 7. In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head while in his bed.

Then he wrote down the dream, telling the main facts. Daniel spoke, saying, I saw in my vision by night, behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring the great sea, which would be the Mediterranean Sea. And a four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other, so they come out of the Mediterranean Sea.

The first was like a lion. He had eagle's wings, and they watched till its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted from the earth and made to stand on its two feet like a man, and a man's heart was given to it. And suddenly another beast, the second like a bear, and it was raised on one side. It had three ribs in its mouth, between its teeth.

And thus, and they said thus to it, a rise devoured much flesh. 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. So, dominion. This has to do with rulership. So, once again, we say, okay, this is about kings and kingdoms.

This is about empires. Verse 7, and this I saw in the night visions of behold a fourth beast, dreadful and 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 was before it, and it had ten horns. Now, let's stop there and say, okay, what does that mean?

I have seen all kinds of attempts to explain this. The bear is Russia. There was a time back during the Cold War where there were certain people that would teach that the bear is Russia. So, this was a prophecy about the Communist Empire. Different of these beasts were supposed to be the lion could be the British Empire. What is the symbol of a British Empire? The lion.

One of these empires maybe sometimes was the United States. But if you go back 50 years, there were attempts to try to explain this in the context of the modern world. We don't try to explain this in the context of the modern world. We try to explain it in the context of Daniel, which means that unless we're all just... We can all sit down. It'd be interesting to have all of us sit down and say, make up who these four empires are or four nations are. And we can come up with four historical empires. We can come up with four countries today. So, what do we do?

What we do is we start with Daniel 2 because it was given first. And we lay this on top of Daniel 2. You see what I'm saying? It's laid right on top. As it's laid on top, oh, it's the same four empires.

It's talking about the same four empires. If we don't start with Daniel 2, I don't know where we start. And I have no idea where we end up. You understand? Then it becomes subjective. We can all make up whatever we want. So, since this is given to Daniel later, and it's talking about four... It's a prophecy about four empires. And we only have one prophecy about four empires. Now, what's interesting... Let's look at the next slide. When we look at the four beasts...

When we look at this four-beast, the lion, it is interesting that Nebuchadnezzar, even in the Bible, in Jeremiah 4, Ezekiel 17, is compared to a lion and an eagle. Now, this is a lion with eagle's wings. So, we see the four beasts of the sea. The first one is like a lion with eagle's wings. And even in the Bible, we see Nebuchadnezzar referred to as a lion with eagle's wings. Now, what's very, very interesting about Babylon in its history is how was it represented? Did you notice or did you hear that in Iraq, ISIS has gone into one of the museums that had artifacts from the time of Babylon, and they're destroying them, defacing them and destroying them. So, all this proof of Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon, they're systematically destroyed. Fortunately, you know, there's other artifacts that are in the museum of Berlin, London Museum, but they're actually destroying that history.

And if that's all there was, the proof of that history, except for pictures, would be destroyed.

Well, we go to the next slide because when we look at Babylonian history, this is how you will see Babylon representing itself. It always says a lion, and using the lion has wings.

And this was, you'll find it on their, it was on their buildings, it was on their coins.

So, we have all kinds of representation of this. And so, they are a lion with eagle's wings.

The next, of course, and I don't want to spend a lot of time with this, I mean, we did, I also gave a sermon about two years ago where I went through the history of Babylon and the prophecies of Babylon. So, I don't want to get into that, but I, because I want to get to what we're, really what we talk about today. The next, of course, is the bear.

The bear is twisted on one side. There's a, tried to interpretate that. I'm not sure it can mean that it's showing that the Medes, or the Persians, were more powerful than the Medes, because there was actually two parts of that empire, two different groups of people that came together to form that empire. It has three ribs in its mouth. The next slide will show.

They did conquer three great empires, Babylon, Egypt, and Lydia. You know what's amazing about when you study Persian history is that if you had to pick an animal to describe Persia, they were the first empire that actually tried to administrate an empire.

The others would conquer. You know, Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, all the preceding empires basically conquered people, and they were like the mafia. You paid them protection money.

You paid them a certain amount of huge amount of your wealth every year. If you did, the army showed up and took it. Otherwise, they basically left you alone. So, empires were, we conquered you. It's like the Assyrians. It's like the Babylonians. If you study through the history of Israel, Assyria invaded them numerous times before they finally conquered them.

It's because they wouldn't pay their taxes. Babylon invaded Judah numerous times before they conquered them. They didn't care what god you worship. They didn't care your political structure. You just had to pay them taxes. It was an amazing structure. It was just like the mafia.

But they never did things for the nations that they conquered. They just... you pay stuff.

Well, the Persians said, no, what we need to do is administrate this into one Persian world.

So, they created a sophisticated bureaucracy that nobody's ever been able to figure out.

Because it just got bigger and bigger and bigger, and they had a huge army.

The biggest army that the world had ever seen by far. And it was like a big lumbering bear.

The whole thing was just this big lumbering system. So, here we have Persia referred to as a bear.

So, as we see, if we lay this on top, it's just filling in details of Daniel, too.

Now, the next slide, we talk about Greece. A leopard, four heads, four wings.

Greece... the main thing about Greece was its speed. And, of course, the leopard is one of the fastest land animals in the face of the earth.

Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world in just a few years.

And then died at age 33. He conquered... the only reason he stopped is he got so far into India that his army wouldn't go anymore. They just said, this is enough. We can't do this.

It goes on forever and ever. In other words, every place they went, there were more cities to conquer, more cities to conquer. And they got so far in the Indians that they thought they would reach the end of civilization, you know, of people. And they found out that no matter where they went in any direction, there was more people. And finally, the army said, we can't do this. Because the army was very small. He probably only had about 30,000 men. And he kept conquering the world with them because of their speed and their hoplite, the way they were organized and so forth.

Upon his death, of course, it was split into four. His empire was split into four.

And next slide, we have that up. This is very important when we talk about the abomination of desolation. So remember this, first, when we talk about the abomination of desolation in the future. And that is, eventually, the Greek empire coagulated into two groups. One was ruled by a group of people, a family known as the Seleucids, and the other, a family known as the Ptolemy's. And they would have a great impact on what happened in the nation of Israel, the Jewish Israel, as the Jews went back after the Persians sent them there. And have a lot to do about some prophecies in Daniel that help us understand the abomination of desolation, as mentioned in the New Testament. So remember that, the Ptolemy's and the Seleucids.

And then you have this other beast. And as I said when I showed this at the Bible study in July, I said, this is the only beast I could find that wouldn't scare the kids too much, because it looks like a cartoon. We have a terrifying beast with ten horns. And we'll just go through these next two slides very quickly. These ten horns are ten kings that would arise. Now, I'm not reading all this. This is all through chapter seven now, talks about these horns. It talks about these kings.

It talks about a little horn. We're going to go back to that in a few minutes.

And that this little horn will persecute the people of God. Now, what's very, very important about chapter seven? Let's go to verse 23 of chapter seven, because what happens to this fourth kingdom is exactly what happens to the fourth kingdom in Daniel 2. He says, verse 23, the fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom so we know that all of Daniel 7 is about kingdoms, which shall be different from all other kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, trample it, and break it in pieces. The ten horns are ten kings that shall arise from this kingdom. And another shall rise after them, which is different. This is that little horn that was talked about. Verse 25 says that this little horn shall speak pompous words against the most high, so persecute the saints of the most high, and shall intend to change times and law, and the saints shall be given into his hand for a time and times and half a time.

Which is just universally agreed that that time and time and half a time are almost universally agreed is a Hebrew idiom for three and a half years. So in the future, this fourth beast is motivated to persecute the true people of God. And he only does it for three and a half years.

And what happens after that? Verse 26, But the court shall be seated, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and destroy it forever. That the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most high.

His kingdom is everlasting kingdom, and all the minions shall sure serve and obey him.

In other words, we have the exact same events as described in Daniel 2. Exact same events!

In the time of the fourth kingdom, saints will be persecuted. There'll be... Now remember, those horns each represent a king. There's going to be a little king.

So he's not as big as the other ones. There's a little king. But this little king has such religious power, and he persecutes the saints. And he's destroyed by the coming of the Messiah, the son of God's kingdom on earth. So unless these... unless Daniel 7 is some parallel other thing happening in the world, it has to be the exact same thing of Daniel 2.

So now we have many more details. If you go through Daniel 7, and you read it in detail, once again, we're not doing that. We did more of that back in July. But we have the details that fit together. So that brings us to part three. Part three. So the next slide.

Oh, and let's go through this first. I get these slides. I put these in here to show that the vision of the beast and the vision of Daniel 2 both end the same way.

That in the time of the fourth kingdom, which we know was Rome, that means there has to be a reconstructed Roman Empire. At that time, the son of man comes and...

which is... we know is Christ, because we understand from the New Testament. Next slide.

I know this is a little hard to keep up with.

He's given authority and glory and sovereign power over all people's nations, and of every language, and they worship Him. And it's an everlasting kingdom. It's the big stone cut without hands that destroys Daniel 2's image and which comes along here and conquers the fourth beast. So now let's go to Daniel 8. We don't talk much about Daniel 8. Next slide here.

Next slide here.

Because Daniel 8 is self-explanatory if you read the whole thing.

What's amazing is how many different explanations there are of Daniel 8 in cometers.

And yet Daniel 8 is important because much of what Daniel 8 talks about has already been fulfilled, and it fills in gaps. From our vantage point, as we're looking at Daniel 2 and Daniel 7, much of it has been fulfilled. What hasn't been fulfilled is the reconstruction of the Roman Empire with the ten nations made of fiery clay, or I mean the fiery clay in iron that is pushed and led by a small religious leader and the persecution of the saints. And it only lasts three and a half years. Now that's what's really interesting about this time period.

It only lasts three and a half years.

So the saints start to be persecuted, and then Christ comes, but it's three and a half years later. So let's look at the vision of the ram and the goat. Next slide. I'm going to ask questions. I'm so used to the Bibles that I have to ask questions because I want to make sure I haven't lost all of you yet. But this is the information we've covered before, so I'll try to go through it quickly. I'm not going to read all of Daniel 8. I'm just going to explain it because you could read it. When you read it, it's amazing because you begin to see it explains itself. And remember when Daniel 8 was given? Babylon was being conquered by Persia. So the head of Daniel 2 had taken place, and the chest was taking place. So Daniel was watching these prophecies being fulfilled. Who in the world was going to conquer Persia, this big, lumbering bear? You know, at the time when Daniel lived under the rule of the Persians, it would have been inconceivable for Persia to be destroyed. Nobody could stand up to them. Everybody that tried was crushed.

So it's inconceivable. So who in the world could do that?

And here we have this prophecy. So we saw a vision of a ram in a goat, and he was so overwhelmed by the thing it thickened him. And if you read through here, you'll see why, because there is a prophecy in here about the persecution of God's people.

And this persecution that specifically talked about here was fulfilled in part and greatly through one of the Seleucid kings that we'll talk about when we talk about the Mominational Desolation.

So here's the vision he saw. Next slide. Daniel stood on the bank of a canal, and he saw a ram with two horns. One horn was higher than the other, and it was charging in every direction, dominating everyone in its path. So here's a ram that just, every direction it charges in, it just dominates every animal in its path. Next slide. So a pale goat approach from the distant west, hovering above the ground and having a horn between its eyes. Now, it's interesting. It's hovering. It's moving so fast, it's not even like it's walking or running. It's hovering as it moves. The goat charged the ram, shattered the ram's horns, and trampled the ring. And the goat became great, but soon its own horn was broken off, and four other horns took its place. Now, I'm just going through. We could spend the time reading all of the first half of Daniel chapter 8, but I think it's a little bit more visualizing, if you could think about this.

So you've got this ram that's just bullying everything around it. It's a big ram, and then suddenly this goat comes hovering along and crushes it.

Now, then there's this other information. Once again, I thought my purpose is to go through the details. This is to get the overview again. A little horn comes from the four horns, and it talks about how the bird offerings were to be... the sacrifices were to be stopped, and that the answer... how long were the sacrifices to be stopped? It's this 2300 evenings and mornings. Now, that has to do with the abomination of desolation. I'll cover that... those details at another time. Now, let's look at what this means. And look at what it means. Let's go to verse 20, because remember, you can find all kinds of explanations about who the ram is and who the goat is. But what does it say right here? Well, look at verse 19.

Because there's a person that comes to Daniel in his dream. In verse 19 he says, Look, I am making known to you what shall happen in the latter time of the indignation, for the appointed time the end shall be. The ram useful so that the appointed time at the end of this vision. This vision is going to happen. The ram which you saw having the two horns, they are the kings of Mediate Persian. Okay, I got that. I get that. Mediate Persian. Okay, conquer Babylon. And the male goat is the kingdom of Greece.

And the large horn that is between his eyes is the first king. Now, this had to come as a shock. Little Greece? Because Greece wasn't even an organized country. Greece was a bunch of city states who spent most of their time fighting each other. Whether you were from Corinthia, or you know, from Corinth, or Sparta, or Athens. You spent most of your time. Every summer they'd go out and beat up on each other. And they'd go home for the winter. That's what they did.

And it's like, here's this huge empire. This would be like saying, okay, Canada is going to take the United States. No, it's not. Canada is not very strong. I mean, Canada is much more stronger than Greece would have been. You know, what? This would be like saying, okay, Belgium and Luxembourg and Monaco are going to get together and take on the United States.

And yet, he says, this is what's going to happen. Of course, we know, we know that's exactly what happened. And that first king was Alexander the Great.

So, what Daniel 8 gives us is remarkable prophecy that we can look back and see fulfilled.

Daniel 2, 7, and 8 should be inspiring to us because it proves prophecy. Or you could be a skeptic and say, ah, this was written long after this. This was written hundreds of years after these events. That's the only two conclusions you come to. Either this is remarkable in its detail, in fulfillment, and therefore helps us understand what's going to happen next, or it was just written by someone later, it made up. Or you have the Preterist viewpoint, which says, all this stuff was fulfilled in the past and has no meaning for today. That is a very dangerous way to look at prophecy. Because what it does is it actually disavows what Christ said. It is all of that prophecy. So here we have exactly stated in Daniel 8 that he's giving him details of the next great empire that's going to happen, long before it would come on the scene.

So we look at the interpretation. The first two of Horrid Goat betrayed the empire of the Medes and Persians. Under Cyrus the Great, Persia became greater than the Medes. That's why there's some belief of this race. One horde is raised because one part of this empire was greater than the other. Most of the military campaigns did go to the west, north, and south, which this ram is pushing to the west, north, and south. Then we have the next slide. Mel Goat rushing in from the west without touching the ground. Alexander the Great, king of Greece. And of course, his swift conquest of the world is legendary. He's considered one of the great commanders of all time.

But his empire was very short-lived. Because what happened when he died, he had no structure to his empire.

Remember, all he did was conquer places and say, when I show up again, give me gold.

Give me protection money, and I won't come to you again. And that was his approach.

So what you have is, when his death, his empire was divided into four parts.

And there we have the four generals that took over.

And of course, Seleucus is mentioned, and Ptolemy is mentioned. And I'm not going to go to Antiochus Epiphides here, because that's part of the, when we talk about the abomination of desolation. So let's just skip the next few slides.

So let's go to the last slide of the, I know this is, well, you can read it. I thought it was pretty small, but now what we do is, when we take Daniel 2, Dan, Daniel 7, and Daniel 8, we lay them on top of each other. Here's what we find. Head of gold, lion with eagle's wigs, Babylon.

Chest and armor of silver, bear, ram, Persia. They just lay right on top of each other. And, you know, you can't deny that the ram is Persia, because Daniel's told it's Persia.

So when you lay this on now, everything's giving more and more details. Belly in the thighs of bronze, leopard with four wings, goat with one horn, and it gets broken. It has four horns, it's Greece. Legs of iron and feet of clay, beasts with iron teeth and ten horns. And the small horn, Roman Empire, became divided, is revived at the end. Stone cut out by human hands, the son of man, as mentioned in Daniel 7, which is Jesus' everlasting kingdom of God. So now Daniel gives us this simple template.

If we use this, we have a way of understanding revelations that you do not have if you don't have this. That's why when you throw out the Old Testament, you miss so much of what's in the New Testament. Because if revelation doesn't lay on top of this, I don't know how to interpret much of revelation. I don't have any way to do it. I don't know what it means. But if Daniel, which remember the book of Daniel was sealed, and they weren't even supposed to understand it at the time of the end, if Daniel is our starting place, revelation has a remarkable, detailed meaning that we can understand by laying it on top of Daniel. And so here we have our starting point. Now there's another point in here, and I don't have time. I thought about taking time to do it, but I want to just take this now and lay it on top of a passage in Revelation to show you how then this makes sense. It makes sense of revelation. Daniel 11 is the longest prophecy of the Bible that most of it has been fulfilled. And Daniel 11 explains to us a great deal of happening at the end, before the return of Jesus Christ. And the prophecy has a lot to do with both the restored Roman Empire and the Arab world. The conflict is going to happen between the Arab world and the restored Roman Empire. That's why we keep saying, if you really want to understand prophecy, watch what's happening in the Middle East, and second, watch what's happening in Europe.

And that's because of Daniel. That's the focal point. That's the focal point of what's going to happen. And Daniel 11 tells us that. When you put this together, you know, what's happening right now in the Middle East is it's not going to start Daniel 11, the unfulfilled prophecies of Daniel 11, tomorrow, but it could set it up very quickly. So now let's go to Revelation. We have 2, 7, 8. I've now, that's what I wanted to do. I never got through chapter 8. But you can read chapter 8, take the information I've given you here, and it's all very, very clear. It all makes perfect sense because it sits on top of the other two prophecies, and it says it. You know, Daniel 8 is so key because it says, I'm telling you what's going to happen with the next two empires. So let's look at Revelation 13. We have a beast. We actually have two beasts. Now remember, the beast of Revelation, of Daniel 7, each one conquers the one before it and absorbs part of what it was, just like Daniel 2. That's why we're looking for successive conquering, you know, one empire falling to the next, falling to the next, because each one absorbs part of what it was. So I am a beast in Revelation. If I don't have Daniel, I have no idea what this is. No idea. Revelation 13. Verse 1. Now, we have Daniel. So let's take what we've learned from Daniel and move it here. And what they get is, well, how do you do that? Well, every one of Daniel's prophecies end with the Messiah destroying a beast or a kingdom or an empire, right? Every one of them. And in two of those verses, no, in all three of the passages we looked at, there's actually a persecution on the saints, although one of them happened in part under a Titus. So what we have here is this beast.

And we know from Revelation, he's talking about the end time. We know from Daniel that we have an end time empire predicted by Daniel. And we have description of what it would be like.

13. Daniel, I mean, Revelation 13. I stood on the sand of the sea. So this is a vision. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns. And on its horns, ten crowns. And on his heads, a blast of the snake. Now, ten horns again. And we see automatically, we're starting to see a similarity. But here's what's amazing. Now, the beast which I saw was like a leopard. We looked at Daniel 7, didn't we? What's the four beasts or the five beasts that are described in four different ways. One of them is a leopard. His feet were like the feet of a bear and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him power and his throne and the greatest thorn. That that iron beast absorbed each of the other kingdoms. Here is a kingdom that has elements like Babylon, like Persia, and like grace. But it's different. Just like the Roman Empire was different but absorbed the appreciating empire.

And the power comes from Satan. The dragon, obviously, in the New Testament, it actually gives the meaning in the book of Revelation. The dragon is Satan. Okay, here, Satan the dragon. So this here is a metaphor for Satan himself. So they get their power from Satan. Now, realize throughout history, all human governments get this power from Satan because we live in Satan's world.

We live in Satan's world. But this one gets special attention.

Special attention from Satan.

Now, verse 3 is very interesting, and I don't want to zero in on this, but it appears that...

Now, here's something else to understand. The beast that is talked about in Revelation is, one, an empire, and two, it's used for the man who's in charge of the empire. So the word could mean the empire itself or the person in charge. It can be used either way.

And I saw one of his hands as it had been mortally wounded and its deadly wound was healed, and all the world marveled and followed the beast. So they worshiped the dragon. So Satan's power is seen as the power of God. Now, this doesn't mean they all become Satan worshipers.

It'd be easy, you know. We're told not to be deceived by what happens at the end. We have to be very careful about the section. If everybody became Satan worshipers, I think it'd be pretty obvious, right? In fact, we're going to see the section that takes place here in a minute.

But they see power, and it's not just political power and not just military power. They see religious power, and they think it's from God. So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast saying, Who is like the beast who was able to make war with him? And so just like Babylon at its height, and just like Persia at its height, and just like Greece for just a couple years under Alexander the Great, and just like the Roman Empire for centuries at its height, who could fight them? They kept winning most of the time. They kept their empires together through their military might. And he was given a mouth speaking great things, and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue for 42 months. This is really, really, important. How long is 42 months? Three and a half years. Remember what we read in Daniel.

Remember? The Little Horn? This fourth-grade empire exists for what? Tied, times, and half a time.

But the concentration of power, and that doesn't mean this doesn't form ahead of time. It doesn't mean there's other things that don't go on to make this happen. What it means then, the concentration of power only lasts three and a half years. That's all it lasts.

So the feet with the ten toes, with the iron and the clay, or the last, you know, burst of the fourth beast, the hideous beast of Daniel 7, or this beast here. So if we lay this on top, it's got to be the same beast.

We have to be talking about Daniel 2 and Daniel 7. It's not Daniel 8 because Daniel 8 ends with Greece. There was something beyond Greece. This is that time, and it's the same time period.

It only lasts the same amount of time as the one in Daniel. So it's important that all these things fit together if you start at the right point. You start at the right place.

So there is coming a restored Roman Empire in some form that will have the elements of Babylon, and Persia, and Greece, and Rome, and it will do these things. And it will blossom against God.

It will have great military power, great economic power, but its life expectancy is very short.

It doesn't last very long.

You know, people say, China is the beast. No, the beast hasn't even formed yet, because it only lasts three and a half years. It's a form that takes place here when it actually begins its moral conquest. It's a temple. It doesn't complete it. It doesn't succeed. Verse 6, He opened his mouth and blasted me against God to blast of his name, his tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven. Now, that's very interesting, because if you go back to Daniel 7—I didn't read all of Daniel 7—if you go back and read that, the little horn, it does all kind of blaspheming of God and the host of heaven.

And remember, they persecute the saints. Remember? Verse 7, It was granted to him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them, and authority was given to him over every tribe and tongue and nation. And all the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the book of life, of the lay of slaves, or the foundation of the world. And anyone who had an ear, let him hear.

He who leads you to captivity shall go to captivity. He who kills with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience of the faith of the saints. So, he says, be patient, saints, because God's going to punish them. And we know when God punishes them.

Three and a half years after they gave power. Because Christ comes back.

So, back to Daniel 7. And just look at this once again. Daniel 7. We get bogged down in the details. Once you look at the overview of this, then you can start looking at the details. But the overview is amazing.

We get so locked into the details sometimes we miss the overview. Daniel 7. Remember, I read verse 19. The fourth beast, different than other kingdoms of our the whole earth, ten kings. And then verse 25, this little king will speak pompous words against the most high, will persecute the saints of the most high, and shall intend to change the times and laws, and the saints shall be given to his hand for time and time and appetite.

Okay, we read this. We read Revelation 13. It's the same thing.

Same exact same thing.

And it's for three and a half years.

You know, sometimes we think we have it hard now. And or we think we'll get close to God, you know, in the future.

Boy, when this all starts, we better be close to God, because you will be able to hide from it.

You'll either take on the mark of the beast, or you'll face some hard times. All of us will. Now, part of the church is protected during this time. I'm not saying it's not. I'm just saying it says they will persecute the saints. Now, here's what we always say.

The bad saints will get persecuted. Only bad saints get persecuted. But that's not what it says.

Only bad saints have bad things happened to them. The good saints, because it does say that he promises to protect some people during the time of trouble. So is it Revelation? It says it's advancing 24. But it doesn't change the fact that everybody's going to face some kind of persecution.

Everybody's going to face some kind of persecution. If we can't take it now, man, what are we going to do then? If we can't be close enough now to take a little persecution, because our friend makes fun of us because we don't keep Christmas, what in the world are we going to do then?

So now we have an understanding of who this beast is.

But this isn't the only beast.

I guess I'm sorry it's been all this time since July until I got to this. I just forgot to do it.

I got involved in so many other things I forgot to do.

For some people it's like beasts. Some people love prophecy. Other people are saying, I shut down the first time you said, you know, the beast or something like that in this Elijah stuff. I understand. Now let's go back to Revelation 13 here and look at the last beast we're going to look at today. I saw another beast coming out of the earth.

He had two horns like a lamb and he spoke like a dragon. This is really, really important. His power is from Satan and he speaks from Satan and he appears like a lamb.

Now in the New Testament, this is real important, even in the Old Testament.

You know, the main sacrifice for sin was a lamb. The Passover was a lamb. Jesus came as the Lamb of God. This religious leader, this beast, okay, which is both a system and a person, this beast will appear Christian.

Now that's probably be very ecumenical.

Probably be very ecumenical of bringing people together. Can you imagine, by the way, a Muslim world that's so ecumenical that they'll come together with Christians? That's not where that religion is going.

So what we have here is something that is going to be in direct conflict with with Islam. And a lot of Christians are going to be attacked or attracted to it. And some Muslims are going to be attracted to it because it seems to bring peace.

But it brings peace through war. Remember that? It brings peace through war. Who could fight against it? Maybe we should go at some point through Daniel 11. It talks about the war at the end time and what happened to that war and who's involved there. He says, and he exercises all the authority of the first beast that is present. So if the first beast is a reconstructed Roman empire, which Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 predict.

So if this is what that is, which you know, you lay this on top, it's obvious, then this beast is working with this reconstructed Roman empire.

It's working with it, but it looks it's a religious thing. It's a religious organization. It's a religious movement. Verse 12 again, and he exercises all the authority of the first beast and his presence and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed. He performs great signs so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. This man will be doing great supernatural miracles through the power of Satan, and it will look like this must be from God. It will deceive much of the world.

And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs, which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. He was granted power to give rep to the image of the beast, and that image of the beast should both speak and cause his menis who would not worship the image to be killed. Verse 16, he causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slain, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads that no one can buy or sell, except those who has the mark in the name of the beast, the number of the beast.

Of course, it goes on and says, which is 666.

But I get to get into detail once again. What we see here is this isn't an empire of itself, but it is supporting the empire. Do we have anything from Daniel that coincides with that? We have 10 kings supported by, or 10 horns, or 10 tones, supported by what? A little horn, who spinks great blasphemies against God, deceives the world, and carries out war against the saints. What we have here is a religious movement led by what appears to be Christians, indeed, to bring the world religions into some kind of ecumenical movement, although they will be at war with Islam, which probably is what will drive it to happen. That's a personal, that's just speculation on my part. I think Islam will drive this to happen.

Eventually, what will happen is you're going to have a reformed Roman empire driven by what appears to be Christianity, trying to get all religions to unite against something.

They'll be united against Islam, and probably eventually the United States.

Not because we're Islamic, but because we're a threat. Eventually, that becomes a threat to China. How do you know that? In Russia, because China and Russia attack the beast power at the end of Revelation. That's how I know that.

It's a world war. It's at the brink. It's like, how do I escape that world war? Well, if God doesn't protect us, you don't. Because it says in Matthew that unless Christ comes back, no one would survive. It's absolutely impossible without supernatural intervention. Now, if I take this—there was one last scripture I wasn't going to go through. I don't have just a lack of time. But if you take this and lay this at the top of Revelation 17, do you know what you get? Revelation 17 talks about a political power, a woman riding the beast. A woman is always a symbol of a church in the Scripture. Israel was called a woman. Judah was called a woman. The church is called a woman. False churches are called prostitutes. And the image is a prostitute riding the beast. How long will that happen? How long will that go on? Well, this religious leader, this religious system, rides this political system.

Three and a half years. So it's not there yet. It hasn't come together yet. But it will.

It will. And it will last three and a half years. And it will be chaotic. Because the whole world will be in chaos. They will be in chaos. That's what he told us when he said there'll be iron mixed with clay. You can't mix iron with clay. Even that will be chaotic. But they form will be chaotic. You and I may face all this. You and I may face all this. I don't know about you, but I'm getting so sick of it. I'm saying, thy kingdom come. Let's just get it over with.

You know, if I'm going to be martyred, let it be 12 expert shots that shoot me at the same time. You know, I don't want to be in some torture chamber, right? Just kill me. Get the thing over with.

Because I sure don't want to be a martyr. I sure want to be protected.

But everybody's going to be persecuted. Now, this isn't to discourage us. It's to give us, uh, uh, uh, to all this confusion. This is amazing. Daniel 2, Daniel 7, Daniel 8, Revelation 13.

You simply lay on top of each other and you say, ah, God told us! We can see this!

This is what's going to happen. Not all the details, but we can see the overview of what's going to happen. So what does it mean to us today? Conclusion, 2 Peter 3.

2 Peter 3. Peter in 2 Peter, in fact, the second chapter of 2 Peter is all about the beast power, the man that would be involved in that. Great leader that sits in the temple of God proclaiming that he is God. That's all right. You know, so he's talking about this time period. Then he talks about God's judgment and even, even ties in the lake of fire in this discussion that Peter's talking about in the prophecies that he gives. And then verse 11 says, therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, he says in the end, all human governments are destroyed, Christ rules. There's a great white throne judgment, and God redoes the earth with what? Fire and then reconstructs it. Now, it's amazing. Revelation hadn't been written yet, and yet he knew this. And this is explained through Revelation 20, 21, 22. He knew this.

He says, all these things will be dissolved. This is the question. What manner of person is not you to be in what? Fear, panic, worry? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die? No. Because we see what God's doing, and He's given us this privilege of having His Spirit, of having Him in our lives, of knowing His truth. He's given us His commands. He's given us the power of Christ that we did not have and could not have on our own. He says, if you know these things, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness? Because if we're not, then you will even lose the knowledge of these things.

And we will face these things without God.

As I said so many times, here's the great thing about being a Christian. You either face life with God or face life without God. In some instances, you and I are choosing to face life without God by making our decisions, doing what we want. And we're actually living life without God, and I wonder why it doesn't work. It's only with God that it works, and you say, what should we be if we understand prophecy? So many times people get into prophecy, too. I've known people that... I had a guy I knew years ago that got so much into prophecy that to hear that was everything. The rest of his life was an absolute joke, as far as Christianity was. But the man did more about prophecy than anybody I've ever met. But his life was a joke, as far as his relationship with God and living like a Christian. So Peter says, you've got to... there's a reason for knowing this, and it's what should we be looking for? Because we look to that and say, I want that stone to crush those toes.

I want that kingdom to come to this earth. We live for it. We want it. We rejoice in it.

Today we try to live like we're in that kingdom, even though we're in the world.

Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, the elements will melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for the new heavens and for the new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved... Now, he just gave all these very sort of discouraging prophecies, and then he says, okay, let's get excited about this. Why? Because we know what the end is.

We know what the purpose is. Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by him in peace, at peace with God.

Are we at peace with God? He says, be diligent. We know the prophecies. Therefore, be diligent to be at peace with God. Because to be at war with God means you will face these things without him.

He says, be at peace, without spot, and blameless. And how do we do that?

And consider that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation.

Considering that Christ died for you and me, and we can get picked up again, we don't have to stay down. We can get picked up again, put back on track, and live life the way God wants us to.

What Peter says here is, remember, look at these prophecies, not to be motivated to have special knowledge, but to be motivated to live life the way we're supposed to.

And to realize that the long suffering of Jesus Christ, that through his life and death and resurrection, we will receive salvation.