DANIEL: CHAPTER 7 (WEEK 8) READ THE SCRIPTURE HERE 

STOP AT CHAPTER 6: How many of you woke up this morning and thought to yourself, you know after a hard week, what I really need to hear about today is some ancient guys bizarre and terrifying dream about beasts that destroy people. I have to admit, when I chose to preach the book of Daniel, I had a number of hesitations because just preaching chapters 1-6 was going to be difficult. Balancing faith and politics is hard enough, but then you get to chapter 7 and we get to a kind of writing in the bible called prophetic apocalypse where we’re hearing about what will happen in the future and the end of human history, and I’m like, can we just stop after chapter 6? However, if we don’t dig in on chapter 7, we’ll miss one of the sections of the bible that Jesus himself used to explain the reason he came. Jesus believed that this chapter of God’s word was incredibly important to help us understand the world we live in and why we need him so much! So, let’s dive in, shall we? On your mark, get set, Let’s start with the… 

• THE FOUR BEASTS: We’re given a picture of four different beasts that arise out of the sea. As weird as these symbols and images may sound, they wouldn’t have been as confusing to the people who had grown up hearing the psalms and the prophets. They had heard people and nations referred to like they were ferocious beasts quite a bit. For example, David talked about people that were seeking to destroy him in [Ps. 22:12-13] He says they’re like bulls circling him and lions roaring and wanting to tear him apart. Another prophet named Ezekiel called Babylon a great eagle. [Ez. 17:11-12] We still do this today. America is represented by what animal?(Eagle). Russia used to be a?  (Bear). Democrats are what? (remember this is church, use the correct word! Donkeys) and Republicans are (Elephants). If someone from a hundred years from now said, in 2020 the donkeys and the elephants competed to see who would lead the eagle, we’d know what they were talking about. So, there are two major things we can see about these great beasts. The first thing we see is that these beasts…
  • THEY REPRESENT KINGS & KINGDOMS: The first is the Lion with wings very clearly represents Babylon and King Nebuchadnezzar. We saw this powerful man, leading the most powerful nation on earth at the time with a great deal of pride and God plucked his wings away and humbled him and made him like an animal for a season. Then when he looked to God, restored his mind and position, he was able to stand with human dignity. The next beast we’ll call the Great Lumpy bear. It says that it was reared up on one side. A better translation was it was raised up, one side was bigger than the other, or stronger than the other. This probably represents the Medo-Persian. Eventually it was just called the Persian empire because the Persians were so much stronger. Then there is the fourth beast that looked like Mega Def Leopard. Okay, probably not Def since it had four heads. And it had four wings. This was probably the Greek empire. Alexander the Great when he became king at the age of 20 would in 10 years create the one of the largest empires ever. He literally conquered the world in 10 years. Talk about the quickness of a leopard capable of flying over any obstacle. Then we have the last beast, the Mega Super Beast. I believe it isn’t given an animal symbol because this beast is representative of…
    • PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE RULERS & KINGDOMS: It has iron teeth, which would represent weapons of warfare to rip people apart and it then tramples them, grinds them under its feet. It has says that it has 10 horns. Now again, this is where ancient readers of scripture knew that horns both represented strength and leaders. In [Ps. 148:14] We hear about God raising up a ruler for his people, a horn. Then all of a sudden, a small horn shows up and tears out 3 others horns to make space for itself and has eyes and a mouth and starts arrogantly speaking about its own power and strength. This horn represents a ruler that has set himself in opposition to God and seeks to replace him. These are the kind of rulers that the bible later calls “Anti Christs”. More than one in human history that both oppose God and his people and seek to replace him. So, in Daniel we get this terrifying monster that defies any one category that has incredible power and multiple rulers. So naturally the question is, who is this little horn and what empire is the super mega beast. Like I said earlier, I believe this beast represents past, present, and future rulers and kingdoms: more than one ruler and more than one kingdom. 
      • The horn probably represented Antiochus of the Seleucid empire, one of the men who came after Alexander Great. He ruled over Jerusalem and slaughtered people and made it a crime to worship or observe Jewish festivals and practices. He set up idol worship in the temple. This beast probably also represents the Roman Empire. A Roman historian Tacitus said this about the empire
        Creating the Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome by murder and destruction. It had many arrogant horns that hated God and sought to destroy his people and replace him as King of the world. And this arrogant horn and this beast represented not just those rulers and empires, but what all human empires have a tendency to turn into. There have been arrogant boasting horns that stood against God in the past like Nero, Hitler, Kim Jong IL & Un, and there will be more in the future. The second thing these images show us is…
    • THEY SHOW THE BEASTLY WAY HUMAN KINGDOMS WORK: In Daniel chapter 2 we have a dream that shows the glory of human kingdoms, represented by gold, silver, bronze, stone. But here we see the destructive qualities of human kingdoms. So, why did God give Daniel a vision with these images when he could have simply explained it. God’s giving us a vivid picture of what we become like when we turn away from him. Whenever humanity turns from God and places themselves as the ultimate center of the universe, we see humans become like savage animals. Like I said a couple weeks back, animals are driven by appetites and desires and are impulsive and territorial. Eat what they want, driven by reproductive desires, and destroy competitors. They don’t have a conscience. You don’t hear about Lions eating people and then questioning their choices. There’s a reason the phrase Dog-eat-dog exists. It’s this I destroy you before you destroy me mentality. And individuals with power and civilizations with power always end up devouring and crushing others and putting their own desires and appetites ahead of the lives of others. We see it in the extermination of the native peoples in early America, extermination of the Hutus by the Tutsis in Africa, Extermination of the Jews by the Nazis in Europe, extermination of Christians in Communist China and Muslim Iran. The super mega beast is alive and well around the world. When we look at little further at what Daniel sees in his dream, we see that the…
      • GOD’S PEOPLE ARE A THREAT TO THOSE KINGDOMS [Dan. 7:21-22] We are told that the beasts are waging war against God’s people. They are seeking to destroy them. Why? There are two reasons. The first is like I said last week, there will always be tension between governments and Christians because Christians only bow to authority as long as it bows to God’s authority. Whenever Christians refuse to follow evil laws and won’t allow the government or its rulers to act like Gods over their lives, Governments cannot tolerate opposition. We saw this with the roman empire just like we see it in china, the middle east, North Korea today. The second reason is that this world is a spiritual war zone. Our great Enemy Satan and his fallen angels lost the war in heaven and are seeking to destroy anyone who follows God here on earth. When you give your life to Jesus, you switched sides and you have a target on your back. Have you noticed that for some, when they give their lives to Jesus, things seem to get worse? That’s because when they were living in darkness, they weren’t a threat. And we’re shown that just because you are Godly doesn’t mean that we won’t be oppressed, persecuted, and trampled by the unseen kingdom of darkness or the beastly kingdoms and rulers of the seen world. The final beast is still alive and at work, there are still arrogant horns speaking against God and waging war on his people.
      • How’s everyone doing right now? Pretty freaked out? Unsure of what to make of this? That’s okay. That’s how Daniel felt too. So, the question we face is, how does seeing this give Daniel a sense of hope? That’s the point of all of this right, hope in uncertain times? The hope comes when we’re introduced to the Ancient of Days & The Son of Man. 

THE ANCIENT OF DAYS SITTING ON HEAVENS THRONE: [Dan. 7:9-10] In the middle of the chaos and destruction happening on earth, we get a perspective of what is happening in the Spiritual realm where God is. God is seated on his throne. He is not worried. He is not trying to figure out how to deal with the situation. He is looking on and preparing to bring justice. Although he’s called the ancient one, that doesn’t mean old, it means the he has always existed and will always exist. When he looks at this world, he stands outside of time. Even the future is past to him. I heard it this way, history to us is still being written. History from God’s perspective already has the end written. It’s like if 2 people were watching a DVR’d baseball game and one person didn’t know it had happened in the past, but the other did and was able to tell who won, we’d look at them in awe like they could tell the future. Except the future is already past for God and he is able to knows how the human story ends. And his hair is white indicating purity and wisdom. And the books that are opened in his presence are the records of the lives of those who set themselves up against God. There will be judgement and justice. And he is surrounded by ten thousand times ten thousand angelic beings that are part of his heavenly army. I imagine that seeing God in this powerful way surrounded by a massive uncountable army of angels would have helped Daniel feel a little less alone and powerless. Then Daniel is shown another strange but comforting sight.

• THE SON OF MAN GIVEN A THRONE WITH GOD [Dan. 7:13-14] We’re introduced to a someone that is called “like the son of man.” This title is incredibly important. You know why? Because when Jesus walked this earth, people started calling him The Christ, which means anointed one, the promised messiah that would come and rule as a King and establish a kingdom of peace and flourishing forever for God’s people. However, Jesus never used that name for himself even though he accepted it when others did. His favorite name for himself was “the son of man”.The most blatent time he called himself this was in [Matt. 26] After spending 3 years healing the blind, the sick, the disabled, loving the outsiders, the outcasts, sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes and driving away darkness in the world, he is dragged in front of a man named Caiaphas who is the high priest and the most powerful man in Jewish religion and community. They’re looking for a reason to kill him because he’s threatening their authority, their power, their kingdoms, and their comfortable lives. And he says [Matt. 26:63-64] Jesus purposefully calls himself the son of man. I’ve heard it explained this way. What if I went to a Star Wars convention and dressed up in all black, put on a helmet, breathed loudly and carried a red light-saber and said to someone “I’m your father” who would I be saying I am? Darth Vader. And If I’m speaking to you, what would that make you? Luke Skywalker. Because people who know Star Wars know what these references mean. So, if Jesus is saying…
  • If I’m the son of man, that makes you: The little horn that is arrogantly standing against God. You’re part of the beast. Jesus is taking the teaching of this chapter and saying… Anyone who rejects me is living with the attitude of the little horn. People who reject me will embrace a way of life that is beastlike. [25]And Jesus is saying, the worst thing you can do to me is trample me, crush me, tear me apart and kill me, but I’ll be exalted by God and will sit at his right hand and rule over this entire world. And that’s what happened, he was rejected, he was crushed, he was torn apart and nailed to a cross. But after his death, there was nothing else that could ever harm him. He rose from the grave and he rose into the heavens on a cloud. He is seated on the throne of heaven and all authority has been given to him. He is surrounded by thousands upon ten thousand of angel warriors, he is surrounded by the saints who have died in the past at the hand of the beasts. And he is coming again. And as strange as this dream was, the main reason it was given to Daniel and to us is to give us hope. We are promised that the…

 WITHIN US NOW: Jesus came to rescue us from that way of life that is destructive to ourselves and to others. HE CAME TO TURN BEASTS BACK INTO HUMANS. You truly become human when you give instead of take. You truly become human when you love instead of hate. You truly become human when you serve instead of take power. You truly become human when you forgive instead of retaliating or taking revenge. The good news of Jesus is not just forgiveness of sins, it’s not just that someday we’ll get to be with Jesus after we die. The good news is that Jesus came to show us how to live lives that are completely different than this world. And when we accept the Son of man as God’s Son and our Savior and King, we are promised to receive the Holy Spirit. We’re told [Rom. 8:12-14] The Spirit will begin to help us kill the desires in us that turn us into beasts. He’ll help us replace hate, pride, greed, lust with love, humility, generosity, forgiveness. He’ll make us more and more human and more and more like Jesus. We are also promised that as dark as this world may seem, as much as evil seems to be winning, the Son of Man will destroy the Beast

AROUND US IN THE FUTURE: Jesus is coming back and he will set this world right. There is no person, power, king, kingdom, nation, empire, or government that will be able to stand against him. And he will remove every trace of evil and replace it with a heavenly home that will never end. What Daniel knew only partially; we know fully. [Phil. 2:6-11] Amen! Let’s Worship the One who sits on the Throne!