Daniel 7a:

Reading #405  The rise of the religious anti-Christ

Having taken us through the personal history of Daniel, now the Spirit returns in time to a period before the fall of Babylon, about five years before Darius’ mistake, possibly 543BC. This starts a series of visions detailing world history which would enable God’s people to see where they were in God’s timing.  That we may know and not be disturbed by the events in the world, Christ has told us beforehand what will happen. “I am the LORD: that is My name: and My glory will I not give to another, neither My praise to graven images [for they can’t help you]. Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them”.   Isaiah 42:8-9.  There is no excuse for us not to know the major events of what is going to happen, even if they are predicted for centuries to come. 

However, all that should really concern us as Christians is that we have a limited time (70+ years generally), in which to fulfil our part in the proceedings.  But we often cut that short before our time by our behaviour!  However, whether Christ comes in our lifetime or not, it will be perceived by us as such, for when we die we simply “sleep” unconscious in the grave till we wake up to see Him “in the air”.  Check 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18.

In the meantime, read this:

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Job 14:

1 Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. 2 He comes forth like a flower, and is cut down [as quickly]: he flees also as a shadow, and continues not. 3 And do you open Your eyes upon such a one, and bring me into judgment with You? [It didn’t seem fair to Job, but, as we will find out later, God has a plan which will answer this objection.  Every single rejecter, including babies, will have ample time to show their choice.] 

4 [Job continued] Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one [no human]. 5 Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with You, You have appointed his bounds that he cannot pass [but we can cut it short]; 6 turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day. [Jesus told us that we are to be more than hirelings, we are to be His friends. John 15:15.]

7 For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. 8 Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; 9 yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant. 10 But man dies, and wastes away: yea, man gives up the Ghost, and where is he? 11 As the waters fail [evaporate] from the sea, and the flood decays and dries up: 12 so man lies down, and rises not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep. 

13 O that You would hide me in the grave [right now], that You would keep me secret [hidden], until Your wrath [the seven LAST plagues] be past, that You would appoint me a set time, and remember me! [The resurrection was only a dim hope in that day.  It is since the resurrection of Christ that we have been sure about it.]

14 If a man die, shall he live again?  All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change [in the resurrection] come. 15 You shall call, and I will answer You: You will have a desire to the work of Your hands.

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Now let’s get on with our reading.

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Daniel 7:

1 In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum [the main facts] of the matters.

2 Daniel spoke and said, “I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. 3 And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse [different] one from another”.

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This time it is Daniel who had the dream/vision.  He would have been wondering how and why God had left His temple for so long in such a broken-down condition, and the Son of God would have responded to his prayers. 

Daniel was familiar with the writings of Jeremiah who was the prophet still living in Jerusalem, and may have read this passage.  “Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up to David; and He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, “The LORD our righteousness”.  For thus says the LORD; David shall never want a Man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; neither shall the priests the Levites want a Man before Me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat [flour] offerings, and to do sacrifice continually”. Jeremiah 33:14-18. 

Of course, this was the spiritual condition which the Son of God has always had, and there was no NEED of an earthly kingship or sanctuary, except as an illustration. (After the return from the Babylonian exile the Jews did rebuild an inferior temple which was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD, but they never had another Jewish king, only governors and priests.)

This vision is similar to the one of Nebuchadnezzar’s fighting man in that it covers some of the same ground.  Daniel saw four animals come up out of a sea of people, the nations of the world (Revelation 17:15) upon which the winds of strife were continually blowing (Revelation 7:1).  These “beasts” or “animals” were cartoon-type characters with wings etc. 

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Daniel 7:

4 “The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it”.

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We can see that the lion represents Babylon (it was a symbol they often used themselves), and that its wings depict the speed with which it was to conquer the then-known world.  About 626BC, well before the event occurred, the Son of God had told a prophet of its coming rise to power in response to his complaint that He wasn’t doing His job!

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Habakkuk 1:

5 [God said] Behold you among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which you will not believe, though it be told you. 6 For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans [Yes, I’ll use them!], that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwellingplaces that are not theirs. [At that time they were a very little and virtually unknown province of Assyria, but there were more of them following the ways of righteousness than any other people, including Israel.]

7 They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves. 8 Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening [hungry] wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hastens to eat [that’s the wings].  

9 They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand. 10 And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn to them: they shall deride every strong hold; for they shall heap dust [make ramps against its walls], and take it.

11 Then shall his mind change, and he shall pass over [a spiritual line], and offend, imputing this his power to his god [the man’s “heart”].  [The wings were “plucked” as we have seen with Nebuchadnezzar’s madness and Belshazzar’s fear.]

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Daniel’s attention then passed rapidly on to the second “beast”.

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Daniel 7:

5 “And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus to it, ‘Arise, devour much flesh’.”

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Again, the resemblance to the arms of the statue is obvious.  The Medes started the rebellion, but the Persians soon took over.  Cyrus, Darius’ son-in-law was king within two years of the fall of Babylon when Darius died.  No one is really sure what the three ribs represent, but it has been suggested that they were Babylon, Egypt, and Lydia.  The latter was a great nation covering the area of what is now western Turkey where it joins Europe. 

Now for the third beast.

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Daniel 7:

6 “After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it”.  

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Then along came the Greeks!  A fast “animal” made even faster by double “wings”, Alexander’s kingdom was soon led by four generals as we have already seen.  But Daniel paid scant attention to these first three animals, for his attention was all on the fourth “beast”.

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Daniel 7:

7 “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns”. 

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The “iron” kingdom of Rome was certainly something to look at.  In a world of stone and bronze this relatively new metal made a great impact.  Rome was “different” from all the others, yet did the same sort of conquering, with even greater destruction that the Assyrians had done.  Because its rise was some 400 years into the future for Daniel, it was difficult for him to comprehend.  But its main feature were its ten “horns”.   These took Daniel’s attention because of the movement among them.

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Daniel 7:

8 “I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things”.  

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As he watched another little [gentle at first] horn came on the scene (horns are symbols of minor kingdoms in Satan’s plan), but this one was unique.  It had “eyes” and a “mouth” which challenged and spoke against the things of God – it was obviously religious as well as secular.  See note at end. Growing out of the “head” of the fourth beast it is a fitting symbol of the Papacy which took over the “iron” kingdom.  During its rise to power it destroyed three other “powers”.  (We should note that when a plant is “plucked up by the roots” there is nothing left of its presence, nor can it grow again.  In like manner, the three kingdoms which the Papacy overcame cannot appear in history again.)  

This leaves only seven to be identified today.

Most professed Christian commentators equate these ten horns with the ten subsets of nations which formed the basis of the western Roman Empire. They are known by various names, but the general Protestant idea has been that they became the European nations. I don’t guarantee their names or their positions for they are no longer important in Bible prophecy, but principally, they were the Huns (Germans), the Ostrogoths (Slavs), the Franks (French), the Suevi (Portuguese and Spanish), the  Burgundians (Swiss), the Lombards (Italians) and the Anglo-Saxons (English). The following three appear to have died out; the Vandals (North Africa), the Heruli (possibly Scandinavian or Germanic), and the Visigoths (Slavs). The old idea from the 1950’s and 60’s that the nations would regroup and form a new European Community of ten nations has well and truly been shown to be faulty.

When the Pagan part of the Roman empire fell apart around 495AD and was divided east and west by Satan, the Papacy destroyed three of the nations because they would not go along with the “new” religion which called itself Christian, but was really a counterfeit.  So today we have a Papacy and seven basic groups of nations in Europe. 1 + 7.  That’s NOT ten anymore, so they are NOT the same as the ten toes of the statue which are last day groups.  We should note that in this vision the ten horns came into existence BEFORE (or went out of it DURING) the rise of the Papacy around the years 508-538AD which means that there is still about 1500 years to account for in history to bring it up to today.  But here, after the rise of the little horn, the Spirit of God jumps immediately to the judgment. 

Thus, while puzzling over what all this could mean, Daniel’s attention was directed to the great judgment scene in which God the Father was to preside. 

A lateral thought:

There are three judgments described in the Bible. 

 [1] The first, which we are reading about now, is the one in which the Father and the angels are shown the names of those who will be resurrected at the second coming,

 [2] the second is when the Son of God and His resurrected people will see the choices made by the rejecters which resulted in them not being in the first resurrection;   Revelation 20:4-6;

 [3] and a third shows us the Son of God alone pronouncing the result of those choices to all.  Matthew 25:31-46.

Of these three judgments only the last requires the presence of those being judged!

This is what Daniel was shown:

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Daniel 7:

9 “I beheld till the thrones were cast down [were placed], and the Ancient of days [God the Father] did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like the pure wool [like Father - like Son]: His throne was like the fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire. [Remember Ezekiel chapters 1 and 10 and Revelation 4?] 10 A fiery [living] stream issued and came forth from before Him [the River of Life, Ezekiel 47:1]: thousand thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand [angels] stood before Him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened. [The Book of Life and the Book of Death.]

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As the books were read, names were accepted, names rejected, for “judgment must begin at the house of God” [those who profess Christianity].  1 Peter 4:17; Exodus 32:33.

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Daniel 7:

11 “I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spoke: I beheld even till the [fourth] beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame. [Revelation 19:20.]

12 “As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time.

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It’s interesting to note that while this judgment is proceeding, Papal Rome is still able to speak great lying words against Christianity, for this tells us that this judgment takes place BEFORE the second coming while the Papacy is yet capable of actively deceiving.  The purpose of this judgment is that the guardian angels can at last know who of their charges are to be in the first resurrection, for this is something only the Son of God knows for sure.  It is His “Book of Life” after all.  Revelation 13:8.

Daniel’s vision also shows us that, like the statue vision (Daniel 2:35), the nations which made up the world-wide empires, (the lion [Iraq], bear [Persia] and leopard [Greece]), are still around until the very end when the fourth “beast” is destroyed in the Lake of Fire.

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Daniel 7:

13 “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven [groups of angels], and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near before Him. 14 And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him.  His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed”.

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At the end of this judgment the Son of God will be given the OK to resurrect His people, and the go-ahead to re-model the earth.

We’ll need to leave the reading at this point and come back to it again next week,

Bye for now, 

Ron

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Note: 

We should be aware of the fact that there are many anti-Christs in the world.  

(anti = openly against    AND    in place of – a counterfeit)

There are the individual persons:

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1 John 2:

18 Little children, it is the last time: and as you have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time [for our generation, Revelation 2:5]. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

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Then there are the organised rejecters, such as Pharaoh and the Egyptians, who refused to listen to God’s warning and followed other gods.  Exodus 5:2. They are collectively called by the title of the “king of the south” in the Bible.

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1 John 2:

22 Who is a liar but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denies the Father and the Son.

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There are also the organised professors of Christianity, the religious ones who betray Christ “with a kiss”, like Judas.  They “stab Him in the back”, and their system is known as “the king of the north”.

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1 John 4:

3 And every spirit [group or church] that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the [ordinary] flesh [of man, as a real man] is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof you have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.  Back

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