The Prophetic Image of Daniel

Okay, what you have in your hands over the years we've affectionately called the Beast Chart. What this is, it's a diagram showing the prophecies, how they correlate with Daniel 2, Daniel 7, and 8, also Revelation 13 and 17. Now, to ease your mind, we are not going to be going through all that today. It would be much too complex. One of the challenges I had when I was preparing the material for today is, what do I leave out?

Because it would be so easy to keep on adding things and adding things because they are relevant. But I also realized that when you've not studied this material in a while, it can be overwhelming. So I may even end a little early today because I've chosen to be very specific in what I want to cover. To this point, and for our visitors, we've been studying the book of Daniel.

Daniel is an interesting book. It's a book of prophecy. But the way God put this book together, he front-loaded the book with a great deal of Christian living. And to this point, that's basically all we've been talking about. We've not been going through prophecy. We've been talking about how in Chapter 1, Daniel was a man of tremendous conviction, a man of courage, a man of conscience.

And even though his nation was cut apart and subjugated by a foreign power, many thousands were killed, many thousands were deported. He himself was deported by the Babylonian Empire. How they changed his name, they wanted to change his language, what he ate, everything about him. But they liked the fact that he was a bright young man and could be used by the Empire of Babylon.

And we saw how he resisted and the way he resisted. Then in Chapter 2, the front part of Chapter 2, the first half of Chapter 2, and other chapters in the Book of Daniel, there was a thread last week where we talked about the power of prayer. And here's a man who, again, was brought as a slave from his nation to a foreign nation. And yet, through the prayers that he uttered to God, rose over the course of his life, serving two different kings in Babylon and two different kings in Persia, the two first ruling powers, where he got to the place where he was like the Prime Minister.

It was a tremendous responsibility. And here's a man who believed in God and worshipped God. And even though he had enemies in court, they couldn't get at him. Because, as the Scriptures say, apart from Jesus Christ, Daniel was one of the three most righteous men who ever lived. Job and Noah were the other two, very righteous men, under very difficult circumstances. So before we actually get into the book, there are some things I want to cover with you in terms of prefacing what we want to look at today.

Daniel chapter 2, the second half of that chapter, is basically an overview of world history. An overview of world history. Now, something that we have to keep in mind as Americans, we have grown up as Americans in America. You know, some people may be, not anybody in this room, but some maybe who are older, remember when America wasn't the premier dominant power in the world that Britain was, and the British Empire was. But even then, under Britain and under America, we have lived in a historical aberration. We have lived in the greatest nation that has ever lived.

And we live in a nation where we don't have to worry about despots. We don't have to worry about military coming and knocking on our door and stealing our people away. It's not like as though we're living under Hitler or living under Stalin or people like that. That is more what the world has lived under for most of its history. We have been fortunate to live in the United States of America. Not that America is perfect. We know that it is not. But we have enjoyed the various freedoms that we have been given.

In 2 Peter 3, verse 8, there's an interesting scripture here about how God views time. I'm going to read it for you. You don't need to turn there if you don't want to. 2 Peter 3, verse 8, says, But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day. So God is a very special way that He views time. And what we're going to see as we look at Daniel, as we look at chapter 2 and chapter 7 of Daniel, parts of those two chapters, we're going to see that those two chapters in a very few verses, seven verses, for example, in chapter 7, Daniel chapter 7 verses 1 through 7, that covers 42% of human history.

It covers 25, 2600 years. So that tells us a little something about prophecy. I made mention several weeks ago, Mr. Rhodes gave a number of years ago a sermon I copied down, a statement he made about prophecy. I think it's good for us to remember this. He gave us a caution regarding prophecy. He said, in the church, and I'm quoting now, in the church you want to be entirely too specific when it comes to prophecy. This is where we get into trouble, he said, this is where we speculate.

We need to view trends and not get too bogged down trying to nail down every little detail in world news. He says, as an example, Daniel chapter 7 verses 1 through 7, 2500 years of human history are covered in seven verses from 600 BC until the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Brethren, I can tell you, as a man who's been in the ministry now for many, many years, that's so true. Whenever there's a major happening in world news, people come and say, Mr. Del Sender, there's got to be a verse someplace in those minor prophets. There's got to be a verse that covers this. No, there doesn't have to be a verse that covers that. So we want to take a look at trends. Let's take a look at something that we see as trends in the book of Daniel. Let's go over here to Daniel chapter 2. I commented on this, I think it was last week, but these are things we want to keep in mind. Daniel chapter 2 and verse 21. Daniel 2, 21.

And he changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and raises up kings, as he's referring to God. He gives wisdom to the wise and now to those who have understanding.

So this is talking about what God does. I may have mentioned that this verse is like the purpose statement for the entirety of the book, that if you like to underline key passages or color key passages, this would be one that would be a good candidate for you.

Now, what we want to understand about this verse, brethren, is this. Our God is a great teacher, and our God wants mankind in general to realize they don't know how to rule themselves. When you look at world history, every race has had their shot. Not necessarily in terms of ruling the whole world, but at least ruling regions. The white people have had their shot, the black people have had their shot, the yellow people have had their shot, the red people have had their shot. And you know what? All the races have fallen very, very short. Not only that, but when you take a look at different countries. We love the United States of America, but do we want this forever? No, we don't want this forever. We want God's kept government forever. But then you take a look at what happened under Hitler or under Stalin, under very, you know, Ede Amin in Africa, under the various people that I don't care what race you're referring to or what nation. God is showing us as a world that every race is wanting in terms of being able to rule, every nation is wanting, every individual is wanting. And that's why we need God. That's why we need God. And God doesn't want anybody to stand up in front of him and say, you know, you just didn't give up, you didn't give our group a shot. No, your group had a shot. Your group had a shot and your group failed.

So that's a trend that we see in human history. Daniel chapter 2 in verse 44. Daniel chapter 2 in verse 44. And in the days of these kings, God, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people. Again, God's given every people a shot. And people just don't make the grade. No. God is going to give his kingdom to the resurrected saints. The resurrected saints are going to be spirit beings. They will not have human nature anymore. They will be able to truly rule, talking about, as we heard in the sermon up today, rule with love, rule with God's law in a way that is best for everybody. This kingdom shall not be left to other people. It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and shall stand forever. And that's a big statement as well. Some of these world-ruling kingdoms, for example, Babylon. We'll get to this in a moment. Babylon, as great as it was, only lasted 87 years. Not a terribly long time. Not a terribly long time. So, in the chapter 2 of Daniel, we see four world-ruling kingdoms. But then there's a fifth. And the fifth is the kingdom of God. Now, part of where I'm coming from today with the sermon, when Daniel wrote these prophecies, these things had not happened yet. These things were going to take place many, many years into the future in some cases. Many years. Now, for you and I today, as we look at Daniel chapter 2, you and I view Daniel chapter 2 largely as history. Because for the most part, all these things have come and gone already. They've already happened. So, why do we take the time to go through them? Because, brethren, you and I are people of the book. This should rule our lives. We are people of the book. And what we're going to see is that when God says something, it's going to come to best. Remember the first sermon I gave, I talked about four major lessons in the book of Daniel.

Number one was how God is sovereign. We're going to see that over and over again in today's sermon. The sovereignty of God. Not man, God. We're going to see that God has a plan, and he's working his plan out. We're going to see that today. We're going to see that our God is a God of tremendous grace.

You know, when you think of prophecy, you don't tend to think of grace. In that, this book is book of Daniel is filled with the grace of God. And, of course, last week we talked about the fourth area, that's a major area of this book. That is the answered prayer of one of God's people. These prophecies are so accurate. When we get to Daniel chapter 9, there's a thing called the 70 weeks prophecy. Hundreds of years, hundreds of years. You know, when Daniel was telling King Nebuchadnezzar his dream in chapter 2, that was 600 BC. 600 years later, one of Daniel's prophecies comes to pass so accurately that Daniel predicts the precise year of Christ's appearance and the beginning of Christ's ministry in 27 AD. 600 years before it took place, Daniel is so accurate that they're a good share of who people call themselves scholars, who say, you know, this can't be. When he wrote, it couldn't have been prophecy. When he wrote, it had to be history. He had to be looking back at those things to write them so clearly, and yet that's not the case.

So what do you and I do with that knowledge? What we do with that knowledge is we remember that when God makes promises to us, he keeps those promises. When he tells us that his kingdom is coming, his kingdom will come. I'm sure all of us in this room have had our share of being battered about by the world. We've taken our lumps. I'm about to take some lumps. I'm moving to Chicago.

I've got to sell my house. I know that to be very beginning. What I pay for my house, I know if my house is worth it. I think I know if my house is worth it on the market. I know I'm going to lose at least $50,000. I can't even begin to put my house up for sale for what I paid for it. So, yeah, I'm going to be a clobber. Now, that's just the way life is. But you know what I look forward to? The fact that this book gives me hope. This book gives me encouragement. This book tells me there's a better world coming. This book tells me that Jesus Christ is coming. And that gives me a great deal of hope and encouragement. That's one of the reasons we're going to study today. Okay, let's go back to Daniel 2 and start into it. The chart that I've given you will use that in just a couple of minutes. So, be patient. Like I said, we're not going to go everything on that chart. What you might want to do is, when we're done today, fold that, put that in your Bible, keep it there. We'll be referring to that through the course of going through the book of Daniel here. Daniel 2, verse 1.

Now, in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, roughly 600 BC, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams and his spirit was so troubled that a sleep left him. Then the king gave the command to call the magicians, the astrologers, the sorcerers, the Chaldeans, to tell the king his dreams. So, they came and stood before the king. Now, remember last week we talked about how these magicians and astrologers and sorcerers, these are people who practiced the black arts. They were into demonic situations, seances, that sort of thing. The astrologers were into horoscopes. None of these people and none of those arts were of any help to King Nebuchadnezzar. In fact, they couldn't tell the king what his dream was or interpret it, and many of them lost their lives. We come now to chapter 2 here. Let's cut to the chase. Verse 31. We're going to look at a summary here. Daniel chapter 2 verse 31. You, O king, were watching, and behold a great image. So, here we have what at this point was a tremendous prophecy. This great image, whose splendor was excellent before you in its form, was awesome. This image, the image's head was of fine gold. Now, we're going to see where that's one of the world-ruling kingdoms, by analogy. It's chest and arms of silver. That was a second world-ruling empire. It's belly and thighs of bronze, a third world-ruling empire. Its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. And this was a fourth world-ruling empire. This particular empire will have various resurrections until the return of Jesus Christ. So, here we see a summary statement. Now, let's look at this a little more closely. Daniel 2, when we saw in verse 32, it says, the image's head was of fine gold. Fine gold. We drop down to verse 37. You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom and power and strength and glory. Notice, he didn't get it because he had a great army. Now, he made it. I'm sure he had a great army. But it says, the God of heaven has given him the kingdom. That goes back to verse 21, doesn't it? Where God makes and un-makes kings. God makes and un-makes precedents.

For you, O king, are a king of kings. The God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength and glory. Verse 38, wherever the children of men dweller, the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, he has given them unto your hand and has made you ruler over them all. You are this head of gold. So, we have it right there. The Bible talks about how, in this image, Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian empire, was the first world-ruling empire. Now, on your charts, far left column, under Daniel 2, you see the head of gold up in the upper left-hand corner. You go across to the far right columns. You'll see where it's the Caledean empire. You've got the dates there for the Caledean empire. 625 to 539 BC. So, that takes care of that. Now, we saw that there was something else. Going back now to Daniel 2, verse 32, talk about its chest and its arms of silver. You go now to verse 39, that after you, after the Babylonian kingdom shall arise, another kingdom inferior to yours, and another third kingdom of bronze. But we stop there in verse 39. You've got the second world-ruling kingdom that had a chest and arms of silver. Now, how many arms do we typically have?

We've got two. This particular kingdom was a combination of two powers.

The one power was the needs, and the other power was the Persian people. Okay. Again, on your chart, you see there in the far left column, breast and arms of silver. You go across to the far right column, you see the Persian empire from 558 to 330 BC.

So, there you've got the second world-ruling empire. Now, we say world-ruling. This is basically, these are regional powers. They weren't ruling anybody in North America or South America. Remember, according to the Scriptures, we have the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, there, and the population of the world extended out from that area. So, we're looking at the Middle East and who was ruling the Middle East when we talked about a world-ruling empire, because that was the known world at the time. In Daniel 2, verse 32, we see there's not only the head of gold, the chest and arms of silver, we see there's a belly and thigh of bronze. And we see the same thing there. A third kingdom of bronze on your chart. You see in the far left, belly and thigh of brass or bronze, you go across to the right column, that's Greece under Alexander the Great.

So, you're seeing these various kingdoms.

Daniel 2, verse 32, verse 33, actually, it says, It's legs of iron, its feet partly of iron, and partly of clay.

And then you drop down to verse 40, the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, and as much as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything and takes iron, the crushes and the kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. So, you've got a kingdom here that has got two legs.

You know, just as one of the empires had two arms, this one's got two legs. This is talking about, as you look at your chart there, the last one under column, the left-hand column, Daniel chapter 2, legs as iron. Two legs, right? The Roman Empire was in two different divisions. You had the western portion of the empire ruled from Rome. You had the eastern part of the empire ruled from Constantinople.

Now, historians would tell us that Rome fell in 476 AD. That was the western portion of the Roman Empire. However, Constantinople kept on going for another thousand years. And the people who lived in the east still called themselves the Romans. They didn't live in Italy, but they called themselves the Romans because they identified as a portion of the Roman Empire. Two legs. The Roman Empire went from 31 BC to 476 AD. Now, let's take and add some more detail here by going to Daniel chapter 7. Remember, these first seven verses cover 42% of human history. Obviously, God is giving us a tremendous overview here, but there are important aspects of this we want to take note of. Daniel chapter 7 verse 1.

In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, let's pause there for a moment, we've seen where Daniel as a captive has been working under Nebuchadnezzar. Now he's working under another king, a second king, Belshazzar. Daniel had a dream, envisions in his head while on his bed. Then he wrote down the dream, telling main facts. Daniel spoke saying, I saw on my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were churning up the great sea. Now, what is the great sea? Remember geographically where we're at. We're in the Middle East. We're not looking at the Pacific. We're not looking at the Atlantic. What are we looking at here? We're looking at the Mediterranean. This is the Mediterranean Sea.

Four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other.

Four great beasts. This is representative of Gentile powers. Gentile powers coming up out of the sea. Now, in your notes, you may not want to turn there, but in your notes, you might jot down Isaiah 57 and verse 20. Isaiah 57 and 20 says this, the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. So basically, here in Daniel 7 and verse 3, these beasts representing oral powers are coming up from peoples, from nations.

You might also put in your notes Revelation 17 and verse 15. In many cases, the Bible will interpret itself. Revelation 17 and 15 says this, then he said to me, the waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues.

So these four kingdoms, these four great empires, are coming from mankind. Now, starting in verse 4, we begin to add some detail to what we saw in Daniel chapter 2.

Verse 4, the first was like a lion and had eagle's wings. I watched till its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a man's heart was given to it. So verse 4 corresponds, and you can take a look at your chart there, the lion corresponds to the head of gold. So we're talking about Babylon.

We're talking about Babylon, the winged lion. I'd like to read you from the Expositor's Bible Commentary. If you enjoy doing research, the Expositor's Bible Commentary is one of the very best you can get. I've got a set of those, the hardbound edition on my shelf at home. Actually, they're off the shelf in a box now. I'm getting ready to move. But when you typically buy the 12 or 13 volumes, it could run a bunch of $300. Now, if you buy an electronic set that you can put on your computer, that might run somewhere around $150 or so. But it's a tremendous resource, and I've got both, both the electronic version and the other version. Here's what Expositor says about Daniel chapter 7 and verse 4, and I quote, the first of these beasts is a winged lion whose eagle-like wings are soon plucked so that instead of flying it stands on the ground. A human heart is given to it in light of Nebuchadnezzar's career. It is clear that the plucky of the lion's wings symbolizes the reduction of his pride and power at a time of insanity. And we talked about last week how God allowed Nebuchadnezzar to, for seven years, he lost his mind. Fingernails grew, his hair grew, he's crawling around the ground, he's eating whatever can be thrown his way. And so that's what this symbolizes. Calling out with a quote from the Expositor's Bible commentary, he says, the lion's symbol was characteristic of Babylon, especially in Nebuchadnezzar's time when the Ishtar Gate, the Ishtar Gate, we might pronounce that the Easter Gate, the Ishtar Gate entrance was adorned on either side with long procession of yellow lions on blue-glazed brick, fashioned in high relief. The fine detail of the heart of a man was given to it. He referred to the restoration of Nebuchadnezzar's sanity after seven years of dementia. In any event, the correspondence between the winged lion and the Babylonian empire is acknowledged by biblical critics of every persuasion. Brethren, this is true. There are some things in our church culture that we believe that very few other people believe. But when it comes to these four world-ruling kingdoms, historians agree with what we see. We agree with what they see. So there's no having to worry about, well, it's just something out of our own minds. No, this is what historians have come to believe. Now, where there is a departure from what the world believes and what we believe is when you get to the place where in that fourth kingdom there are seven heads and ten horns. Now, our understanding of that—we're not going to get into all of that today. We'll get into a portion of that today. But our understanding of that is unique to our church culture. But we'll cover that as more time goes along. We don't want to cover everything today. Okay, chapter 7 of Daniel here, verse 5. And suddenly another beast, the second, like a bear, it was raised up on the side and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. And they said thus to it, Arised, devour, of much flesh. So, you know, in your chart, you see, and the second to the column from the left, you see the bear beast here. It corresponds to the breast and arms of silver, which is the Persian empire. And it's interesting when you see in verse 5 here where this bear was raised up on one side. One side was higher than the other. What does that mean? Well, as I said earlier, between the Medes and the Persians, which the empire was composed of those two groups of people, the Persians were the dominant group. That was the group that was raised higher. Now, there's also something else that's interesting. Again, this is something that Daniel wrote that came to pass after he was gone. It had in its mouth three ribs. Three ribs. What are those three ribs that the Persian empire had in its mouth?

Well, as the Persian empire was gaining strength, as it was gaining power, it was gaining land. It was chopping up other little kingdoms. The three kingdoms it absorbed were the Lydian kingdom, which fell to Cyrus in 546. That's one of the ribs, the Lydian kingdom. The Babylonian empire, the second rib, which he annexed in 539, and Egypt, which Cambyses acquired in 525. So those are the three ribs, the Lydian empire, the Babylonian empire, and Egypt.

Now, again, you might think, well, so what? Well, brethren, our God who prophesied these things also prophesies things about your future, about how you and I should live our lives, and that God this great needs to be followed, needs to be heeded. We need to take this book and make sure that's a part of our everyday life. Go to verse 6 here, Daniel 7.

After this I looked, and there was another, like a leopard, which had its back four wings of a bird. The beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it. Now, a leopard, pretty quick animal, right? Fast. You put four wings on that thing, it's going to be faster.

Again, you look at your chart. You see the third beast here, the leopard, was the same as what we see just to its left here, the belly and thighs of brass. You see this is Greece under Alexander the Great. Brethren, in history, the world never saw an empire pull together as quickly as Alexander the Great pulled together his empire. It was, you know, talk about blitzkrieg. It was the ancient world's version of blitzkriegs. As a matter of fact, no one on the face of the earth saw an army conquer this much land this quickly until Germany in World War II. So here you've got Alexander the Great conquering all this land. He conquers it all in just a matter of a few years. He's only in his early 30s, and he dies. There's nothing else to conquer. That was one of the things he said before he died. There's nothing else for me to conquer. I've got it all. I mean, he was a tremendous general and strategist. Now, in verse 6 here, we see about the leopard with the four wings, but we also see something else. That that particular kingdom had four heads.

And again, historically, we look back. Daniel was writing this as prophecies. He was looking forward to this coming. But we look back and we see, well, who are those four heads? When Alexander the Great died, he left his kingdom. He died in 323 BC. He left his kingdom, so he conquered everything in about seven years. He didn't have jet planes that had taken places. He didn't have a bullet train. He walked various places. So he conquered the known world in about seven years, seven, eight years. But when he died, he left his empire to his four generals. To Greece and Macedon, there in Greece, he left his his bad area to Cassandra. To Thrace, in age of minor, he left that to Lysimachus. He left all of Asia, except for Asia Minor and minor in Palestine. To Coseliucus. And to Egypt and Palestine, he left that to Ptolemy. Of course, if you study Egyptian history, you've heard about the Ptolemaic kings and Cleopatra the queen. Okay, we now go to Daniel 7.

After this I saw on night visions behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong, had a huge iron teeth, it was devouring and breaking pieces and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns.

That's why it's different. Babylon, Persia, and Greece came and went. This fourth world-ruling empire, it had a deadly wound, as we're going to see later on in another sermon, but the deadly wound was healed. And it had a number of successive resurrections, as we're going to see in a couple of moments. And those resurrections will go all the way down to the second coming of Jesus Christ. That's how it was different. The Roman Empire fell. Again, you get your charge. You see the fourth beast, ironed with ten horns. You see the correspondence of the Roman Empire. Now, there's something here in Daniel 7 that isn't politically correct, but we're going to touch it anyway. Daniel 7, verse 8, I was considering the horns, and there was another horn, a little one, coming up from among them, before whom the three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots, and there in this horn were eyes like a man, and a mouth speaking pompous words. Not righteous words, pompous words. Verse 8 is describing a religious power, a religious power that's going to have tremendous essay and world events in the future. As you and I progress through the book of Daniel, as we go into parts of the book of Revelation, we're going to see there's going to be a tremendous beast and false prophet. There's going to be a political entity and a religious entity, and they both work hand in glove. This is the religious part of them. In your chart there, the third column from the left, about the middle of the page, you see the little horn. Babylon the Great, religiously speaking. False Christianity, speaking about AIDS, false church. Not a true church, the false church.

The Bible talks about somebody who's going to come onto the world scene at the end of the age before the return of Jesus Christ. This person at first is going to talk about all things that we would consider good, you know, the golden rule, this, that, and the other. This person probably will walk into various hospitals, heal people, probably raise the dead, do all sorts of miracles. And after a while, when people are thinking, boy, this guy's really something, that same individual's going to say, you know what? I'm God. You couldn't get it before, but I want to let you know, I'm really God. Well, he's not God, he's the Antichrist. And this is what we're looking at here in verse 8. From this church comes the Antichrist, comes the one who will fight Jesus Christ at his return. Now, it's interesting, let's take this apart a little bit. In verse 8 here, right about the middle, it says, coming up from on them, before whom three of the first horns were plucked up, three of the first horns. Now, that gives you an indication that these 10 horns that we read about came in succession. So, who are these three horns that are plucked up by the roots? Well, you can look at your notes there, and you see the first three horns. Look at Daniel chapter 7, just above the halfway part, you see horns number one, two, and three. These are the vandals that harry Eli and the Ostrogoths. And you've got the dates for these peoples. Now, the pope himself, back in history, didn't like these peoples because they weren't Orthodox the way the Roman Catholic Church was Orthodox. And so, the pope had a hit put on these groups, and the pope got rid of those three groups. Notice it says in verse 8, they were plucked up by the roots. They weren't going to continue because they didn't have the right theology. And then, from that point, you see that you've got these ten horns. And in your chart there, the second column from the left, you see horn fourth going down to horn ten. And you've got on the far right-hand column the different restorations of this holy Roman Empire. You start with Justinian. After the vandals, the harry Eli and the Ostrogoths, you've got Justinian who was a part of that church.

His imperial restoration in 554 AD. Then, the next restoration, the fifth was under Charlemagne. He was crowned on Christmas Day in 800 AD. Now, Charlemagne is an interesting personage in history because today, in Europe, as the European Union, as the Europeans want to have a United States of Europe, one of the models they tend to look to and talk a lot about is the model of Charlemagne.

That's what they're after. And we're going to see when you take a look at the very bottom line of your chart. That tenth horn is composed of ten toes, ten political entities, and they're going to give their power to this great religious personage. So, you've got there the last revival of the holy Roman Empire, which is yet to come. That's something we're looking at, looking forward to seeing. When we see that taking shape, and it's not the European Union right now. Now, this is presently composed. But when we see that taking shape, then we know, you know, time is knocking on the door. It's almost that time. Then you have the sixth horn, Otto the Great, revival of the holy Roman Empire. Interesting, though, because Otto the Great was a German. It wasn't a holy empire by any stretch. It wasn't Roman in one real sense, although it encompassed that area. But this was done by the Germans. The seventh was the Habsburg dynasty under Charles V, crowned in 1520. Then you've got Napoleon, the eighth resurrection. He was crowned 1805. Then the ninth resurrection was started with Garibaldi when he unified the Italian peninsula. The Italian peninsula was a bunch of little fiefdoms. He united that. That eventually morphed into what Mussolini inherited. Of course, Mussolini and Hitler formed the ninth resurrection of the holy Roman Empire. That leaves us with our date today and what we are looking for today.

We've taken a look now at four world ruling empires, and we're just about done. Let's take a look at Daniel 7, verse 9. Daniel 7, verse 9. I watched till the thrones were put in place, and the ancient of days was seated. Who is the ancient of days? The ancient of days could be either God the Father or Jesus Christ. The only way we know whether we're looking at God the Father or Jesus Christ is by the context of what we're reading. So here, who are we looking at? Is this God the Father or is this Jesus Christ? Well, let's keep on reading. His garment was white as snow, and his hair of his head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame. Its wheels a burning fire. A fire streamed and issued and came forth from before him. A thousand thousands ministered to him. Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. So all of this can refer to either or. The court was seated, the books were opened, and I washed them because of the sound of the pompous words which the horn was preaching. So here we see a direct contradiction. Not a contradiction, but a direct contrast. You've got God the Father or Jesus Christ being spoken of, and then there's this pompous horn. There's a horn that symbolizes power in the Bible. You've got this pompous power speaking, a religious power speaking. I washed the little beast with slain, and its body destroyed and given to the burning flame. We'll talk about this and we'll see this in the book of Revelation at a later point. As for the rest of the beast, they had their minuets taken away, yet their lives are prolonged for a season and time. I was watching, verse 13, in the night visions, behold, one like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. Now we know who that is, right? We take a look at 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4. We know who the Son of Man coming in clouds is. That's Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came to the Ancient of Days. So the riddle is unlocked. In this particular setting, the Ancient of Days is God the Father. He came to the Ancient of Days. They brought him near before him. Tim was given dominion and glory and a kingdom in all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, as he won the once which shall not be destroyed. Babylon lasted 87 years. Persia lasted about 300. Greece a couple of hundred. Greece about 300. The Roman Empire lasted many centuries, and they're still about to spring yet another restoration. But all those will come and have come to an end. God's kingdom will not. So if there are not in Daniel chapter 2 and 7, just four world-ruling empires, there are five. And the fifth one is the kingdom of God. So again, brethren, why have we studied this today? Because we have a detailed confirmation of the inspiration of God's Word. There are plenty of people in the world today that won't give this book a chance. They don't think this book is relevant or meaningful at all. And yet we've seen where Daniel, hundreds of years before some things were happening, he was able to predict when Jesus Christ had started his ministry. He was able to predict the comings and goings of world-ruling empires. And that should give us encouragement because we see the fifth empire, the kingdom of God. How rough are you having it in life right now? I know, looking at some of you, some of you are having real challenges in life right now. And if you aren't having real challenges, buckle up.

You'll get them! They're coming your way! I guarantee you that! They're coming your way.

What did Daniel write in chapter 2? He says, There is a God in heaven who reveals secrets and is made known to the king what shall be in the latter days. When the Bible talks, and I'm not going to turn there in Matthew 24 about the return of Jesus Christ and how the world will be at its worst, we believe that we may be living in a time prior to the return of Jesus Christ. And yet, brethren, as Christians, we're going to get into the discussion about how that religious power there in Daniel 7, verse 8, that religious power is going to come after you. If you're a Sabbath keeper, if you're a holy the observer, if you believe in the Ten Commandments, the spiritual powers of darkness, they know who you are. And they will come after you, and they will come after me. And we better be strong in the Lord. We better be strong in faith. That's not something we can build up at the last moment. We've got to be building it brick by brick as time is going along. But as Daniel said, God tells us what's going to happen. We can prepare ourselves. That's one of the purposes of prophecy, is not just to know things, but to get ourselves ready for what is coming. As I said so many times here in the past, if we were Jews living in the 1920s in Europe, what would we do? Well, like a lot of Jews did, they left Europe. Those who didn't suffered tremendous consequences.

Daniel wrote about the coming Kingdom of God. He said, The dream is certain, the interpretation is sure.

Two verses to conclude with. Let's look at Isaiah chapter 2.

Again, we may mention that prophecy is positive. Yeah, there's going to be a lot of difficult times in the future. But the bottom line is, God's people win. The bottom line is, we are going to live forever. The bottom line is, we're going to be in the Kingdom of God.

Isaiah chapter 2, verse 1, The word of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now shall come to pass in the latter days. So this is date stamped for our time. Shall come to pass in the latter days at the mountain of the Lord's house. Mountain representing a government, God's government. Shall be established on the top of the other mountains, the nations of the world. And shall be exalted above the hills, the lesser nations of the world. And all the nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways. We will walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Once again, every race has had its shot. Not every nation, but so many nations have had their shot at regional power. All of us as human beings have come short of God's glory, haven't we? And so we have to, as human beings, look at the fact that we don't know how to run our own lives. And we have got to look to God. And God's got to tell us how to run our own lives. Of them by ourselves, we're making a mess of everything. Verse 4, He shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people. He shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore. I was remarking today on Ann Arbor. Wouldn't it be nice if the United States budget for the military was taken and divided by all the Americans in this country? Do you know how much money would be parked into your checking account? I think I could even balance my checking account.

What's that kind of money? You know? I think it'd be kind of nice. That's only one aspect of things. When you watch TV, you see those poor people around the world who are suffering from somebody who says they've got to have power and have it their way. You know, Assad over in Syria has killed off what? Half of his people? You know, this is why I say we are living in an aberration. We are living in America. Do we appreciate what God has given to us? We don't live under Assad. We don't live under Putin. I forget the proportion of people in Russia who are alcoholic because of how bad they've got it in life. We are so fortunate. Again, this country is not perfect by any stretch, but boy, we are so blessed. Isaiah 11, verse 6, my college ring has this, you know, it's a signet ring. It's got a picture of this with the inscription on my college ring in gold.

Beautiful. It represents the coming Kingdom of God. Isaiah 11, 6, the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leper shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion shall end the fatling together, and a little child shall leave them. A little child shall leave them. So today, brethren, we've taken a look at some of the prophecies of Daniel chapter 2 and chapter 7. As we continue on, we'll get other things. Next week, I will be in Windsor, but the week after, we'll continue on. We'll go through the book of Daniel every week that I'm here until we're done. If you didn't get one of these charts, see me afterwards. I'll make sure you get one of these beast charts.