DANIEL 7: 1
Awesome Beasts of Prophecy
“We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed:” 2 Peter 1:19
“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 of the matters." Daniel 7:1
In the books of Daniel and Revelation, the same history of the world is told over and over again, with each different view adding information to the total picture. When all these pieces are put together, by a careful student under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we see a detailed picture of history and future events.
This kind of knowledge is not available to the casual Bible reader, or to the critics and skeptics, no matter how educated or clever they think themselves to be. Remember how the so-called 'wise-men' and magicians of Daniel's day could not interpret the messages from God? It is the same today.
A child, who loves God and honestly wants to obey Him and learn the Truth, will understand what the great men of the world cannot know. It's part of the Mystery of the Holy Bible.
"Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.” Daniel 7:2-3
Belshazzar had come to the throne of Babylon, and as we saw before, he didn’t want godly people like Daniel around his court. What Daniel’s job was at this time we are not told. One night God gave him a dream and in the dream he saw a raging sea, tossed by the four winds, and out of that sea came four strange beasts, one at a time following each other.
We are learning how to understand the great prophecies of the Bible. This is a wonderful study and you will really enjoy it. The books of Daniel and Revelation are really part of the same prophecy and they both help us to understand what the prophecies mean.
There is a big rule in prophecy that you must learn if you don’t want to get all mixed up. We must always find the meanings of the prophecies in the Bible itself. If we just read something and then I say, “I think it means this”, and you say, “I think it means that”, we will get all mixed up. This is what most people do when they read prophecy and it gets to be a mess. Another important fact is that the prophecies are in harmony with each other--Daniel will not tell a different story than Revelation and Revelation will not contradict Isaiah etc.
In prophecy the waters or ‘great sea’ means people and nations on earth:
“…The waters which thou sawest, … are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.” Revelation 17:15.
The ‘four winds’ mean war, trouble and strife:
“And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.” Revelation 7:1.
Beasts represent kingdoms or nations:
"Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, . . " Daniel 7: 23
When we see the beasts come up out of the water when the winds blow, we know they came to power by war and battle.
To Daniel was given a vision of fierce beasts, representing the powers of the earth. But the symbol of the Messiah's kingdom is a lamb. While earthly kingdoms rule by the ascendancy of physical power (force), Christ is to banish every manmade weapon, every instrument of coercion (force). His kingdom was to be established to uplift and ennoble fallen humanity.
Forcing people to worship or obey God, even in something that in itself is right, is not what God wants. He only wants people to serve Him because they want to and choose to.
“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.” Daniel 7:4
The winged lion showed power and speed. It represented Babylon and was even used as a symbol by Nebuchadnezzar.
Under Nebuchadnezzar the kingdom was swift and powerful but later it became weak and foolish under Belshazzar. This is what the wings being plucked and the lion standing up with only a timid man’s heart showed.
Luxury, indulgence, and soft living changed the mighty lion into a weak sissy.
“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 unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.” Daniel 7:5
Next came this bear, which was higher on one side than the other. This was Medo-Persia and it was a combination of two powers and the one power, the Persians was stronger.
It had three ribs in its mouth, which meant the three areas that Medo-Persia conquered to come to rule the world; Babylon, Lydia and Egypt, which were especially ground down and oppressed by this power. It was a cruel and vicious nation and killed many people. That’s why the verse says “Arise and devour much flesh”.
The character of this power is well represented by a bear. The Medes and Persians were cruel and greedy, robbers and spoilers of the people.
“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.” Daniel 7:6
This was the kingdom of Greece under Alexander the Great. It conquered the world so fast that the leopard beast is shown with four wings. A leopard is a fast animal without wings but with four wings God showed it would be very fast.
The four heads represented the four generals of Alexander the Great, which took over the kingdom following Alexander’s death just after he had conquered the entire world. These were: Cassander, who had Greece and its area; Lysimachus, who had Asia-minor; Ptolemy, who had Egypt; and Seleucus, who had Syria and Babylon.
It is important to know how Alexander died as there is a lesson there for youth. He could conquer nations but he could not control his appetite, passions and pride.
He worshipped the gods Hercules and Bacchus (god of wine) and tried to imitate what they were said to have done. He claimed to be a god himself and when one of his generals died, he told people to worship him as a god. He delighted in drinking and parties and when drunk could fly into a rage and kill even his friends. He did many cruel and bloodthirsty acts, once burning an entire city on the suggestion of a wicked woman.
He encouraged such excessive drinking among his followers that on one occasion twenty of them together died as the result of the party. At length, having sat through one long drinking spree, he was immediately invited to another, when after drinking to each of the twenty guests present, he twice drank full, says history incredible as it may seem, the Herculean cup containing six of our quarts. He thereupon fell down, seized with a violent fever, of which he died eleven days later, in May or June, B.C. 323. He was only thirty two years old.
Compare Alexander the Great with the prophet Daniel who decided not to eat the king’s rich food or drink his wine.
"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 brake 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.” Daniel 7:7
Now came up out of the angry sea a beast so terrible that no real animal could represent it. Different from the other beasts, it was very strong and devoured and broke nations to pieces. The iron teeth remind us of the iron of the legs and feet of the great image of chapter 2. You see there are four series of prophecies in Daniel. Each one tells the same story, but each one gives more detail to the story.
In Daniel 2, the image showed four world kingdoms. Babylon; head of gold; winged lion. Medo-Pesia; arms of silver; bear. Greece: Thighs of brass; winged leopard. And the Iron Legs; Rome; The terrible Beast.
Rome was different (Diverse) because it was a Republic and the other ‘Beasts’ had kings. Rome had elected ‘dictators’ which were supposed to obey certain laws and answer to the people of the nation; like USA presidents are supposed to do.
But later the Caesars didn’t do this and became very much like what the Pope would later be: not a king but rather a god. They combined Church and State and God has forbidden this. God can tell so much in the prophecies in just a few words!
Many Christians were martyred as they refused to worship the Caesars.
“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.” Daniel 7:8
