Daniel's Dream

RV164-02

Daniel

Nebuchadnezzar

Nebuchadnezzar's Dream

The Babylonian Empire

The Medo-Persian Empire

The Greek Empire

The Roman Empire

The point is that all of these empires were worldwide empires, and the teams who ruled them controlled a world system.

As Nebuchadnezzar, in fear, watched this statue, he suddenly saw a huge stone which was scooped out of a mountain by an invisible hand, and hurled at the feet of the statue. The statue's feet were crushed, and the whole structure crashed to the ground. As it fell to the ground, it disintegrated into dust, and the remains of the statue were then blown away by the wind, so that no trace was left of this image. As Daniel watched this taking place in his vision, amazed and awed by what was taking place, he was suddenly aware that the supernatural rock that had crushed this image representing the kingdom of man upon this earth, in fact, represented a fifth world empire, the Millennial Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. The rock suddenly began to grow, and in fact, filled the whole earth, and replaced the kingdoms of man with the kingdoms of God.

History has confirmed this prophetic preview concerning the progression of world empires from the sixth century B.C. to our very day. The Roman Empire still exists today. It now exists in fractured nations. It will exist in a different form during the tribulation, and then it will finally be replaced by the Kingdom of God through the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Because of this exact fulfillment of the progression of world kingdoms, Daniel has been challenged as a fraud by unbelievers and by liberal theologians. The claim is made that no one living in the sixth century could possibly have written a book like this, predicting the things that were going to take place in world history with such precision. They're right to a certain extent – that nobody could have written such a book unless God gave them the information ahead of time, which is exactly what happened, and which is one of the evidences that the Bible is the book of God. When the Bible has something to say that applies to you in your dispensation; in your status of life; and, your circumstances, you better believe that it is true.

The Stone of Destruction

Nebuchadnezzar was told that the God of Heaven, who is really in charge of history, has given him a preview of the future of gentile rule. Most of that preview has been fulfilled to this day, but not all of it. Daniel assured Nebuchadnezzar that the interpretation he gave him was absolutely true because it came from God.

Degeneration

Evolution

Degeneration since the Garden of Eden

Daniel declares to the king, "My revelation to you, concerning the progress of human government through the ages, is absolutely true, and it is, furthermore, inevitable."

Let's pick up the story once more. In Daniel 2:46-49, we have the response of Nebuchadnezzar to this enormously important revelation. Please remember that this is an enormously important revelation. If you understand what we have been covering today, you will be able to understand a great deal more in the book of the Revelation. In Daniel 2:46-47, Nebuchadnezzar, having been awed by what he has heard, realizes that he has heard the truth, and recognizes Daniel's God as the true God. So, Nebuchadnezzar falls before Daniel in worship, and he orders that an offering be made to Daniel in recognition of Daniel's divine authority.

Daniel 2:46: "Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face, and did homage to Daniel, and gave orders to present to him an offering and fragrant incense." The King answered Daniel and said, "Surely your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of mysteries, since you have been able to reveal this mystery." And I remind you that the word "mystery" in Scripture means "secret." Nebuchadnezzar praised the God of Daniel as the Supreme God of all gods who reveals the future.

You can see that this is something less than saving faith on the part of Nebuchadnezzar. At this point, he is not saying, "Daniel, your God is the real God. Your God is the God to whom we must all be subject, and to whom we must all account for our sins. He hasn't gone that far. That, I think, eventually did come. And I very strongly am of the opinion that you will indeed meet Nebuchadnezzar in heaven. But at this point in time, he did not grasp saving faith at the hands of the provision of a loving God to cover his sins. He only recognized clearly that Daniel's God had the answer, where his God Marduk had nothing to offer.

Daniel's Rewards from Nebuchadnezzar

Arrogance

Humility

Daniel's Grace Way of Life

So Daniel 2:49 says, "And Daniel made request of the king, and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the administration of the province of Babylon while Daniel was at the king's court." Now these four Hebrew men were in a position of power to proclaim the Word of God, and even more important, to govern this pagan nation on the principles of the laws of God. When you govern a nation on the principles of Scripture, that nation is going to be blessed even if it's filled with pagans. Daniel himself now served the very court of Nebuchadnezzar as the king's chief advisor. Of course, that was very significant to the Jews who were the captives of Babylon (the Jews who were in exile) – that they had such a friend in the court of the king.

This vision of the progress of world empires was given to this pagan ruler, Nebuchadnezzar. If you move over to Daniel 7, we also need this background in our study of Revelation. In Daniel 7, this progress of world empires is now given to a born-again godly man, namely Daniel. And it is given under a different set of symbols than the image which Nebuchadnezzar saw. In Daniel 7:1-2, Daniel has a vision during the night, and he sees a strong wind which is stirring up a sea area: "In the first year of Belshazzar, King of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions in his mind as he lay on his bed. And he wrote the dream down and related the following summary of it." Immediately upon waking, Daniel realized that God had spoken to him, as God did speak in dreams in those days. So, Daniel very wisely, quickly wrote down everything that he had seen, and he gave a summary of that.

Daniel said, "I was looking in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. Daniel's vision will now clarify to us further the primary characteristics of the world empires which were represented by Nebuchadnezzar statue. The statue gave us some information about these empires. We will find that the progression is exactly the same from Babylon down to Rome. But there are characteristics now that are going to be clarified. The night visions of Daniel were received during the reign of King Belshazzar of Babylon. This was about 553 B.C. This vision was received by Daniel about 14 years before the fall of Babylon to the Medes and Persians.

Daniel's Dream

A Lion (The Babylonian Empire)

The plucking of the lines wings indicate the plucking of its power, and its transformation into a human being symbolizes God's discipline of Nebuchadnezzar's arrogance, which you can read about in Daniel 4. It is at that point, at the end of Daniel 4, where Nebuchadnezzar found himself roaming the fields for seven years as a wild animal. When he came back to his senses, that's when he understood that the Creator God, that had that he had been introduced to by Daniel, was the only God. That is probably the point at which Nebuchadnezzar was saved. In any case, this exactly symbolically portray what happened to the kingdom of Babylon. And it does picture the decline and the fall of Babylon as a world empire.

A Bear (The Medo-Persian Empire)

So, the kingdoms have degenerated. It no longer has the finesse; the royal quality; and, the sophistication that Babylon had. After all, Babylon possessed one of the great wonders of the ancient world. There were only seven of them, and one of them was the magnificent hanging gardens of Babylon that, to this very day, they have not figured out how Nebuchadnezzar did it, and how his gardeners did it. But its history records what a magnificent sight these hanging gardens were in Babylon. Saddam Hussein has been very diligently seeking to find somebody who can figure out how they did that, so that he can restore Babylon in that respect as well.

However, the bear does not have that grace. Now we come to an empire which, again, has gone from the value of gold to the value of silver. It has degenerated. The bear was seen as reclining on one side, with one of his shoulders higher than the other, which symbolized the fact that the bear was made up of two empires that had joined together: the Median; and, the Persian empires. But while there were two empires joined together, the Persian Empire very quickly became the dominant empire, and was thus symbolized by the one shoulder higher than the other.

There were three ribs in the mouth of the bear. These symbolize conquest of the Medo-Persian Empire. There are a variety of suppositions on which specific nations these represent, and that's neither here nor there (for us to be that specific), but it does represent the fact that the bear is a bear of conquest. A bear is a very ferocious animal. He is a conquering beast. You may have seen on television this week the story of a boy who lived in a very semi-populated area, and he walked out into the woods area behind the house where he lived, and he disappeared. Finally, they found him some time later. Of all things, he had been clawed to death by a wild animal.

Several years ago, we were on a trip camp. We were up in Glacier National Park in the northwest. We were warned by the rangers, when we were on hikes, to be very careful, because two people who had been out camping on the trail in the regular usual areas, had a grizzly bear come in on them. Grizzly bears are particularly ferocious, and he killed both of the people. So, while the Rangers were trying to run down that bear, everyone was cautioned to be on guard as they hiked in the park.

The Medo-Persian bear is instructed to eat meat, meaning to continue its military conquest. Well, it did this for 200 years of its existence. The Medo-Persian Empire, because it did eat meat (that is, it did conquer), it greatly expanded its territory.

A Leopard (The Greek Empire)

As you may know, after Alexander the Great completed his great world conquest, he went to Babylon, where he was in the process of rebuilding that city, and he died there. To this very day, you can go to Babylon and visit the very room in which Alexander the Great died. When he died, his four main generals simply divided up the world that Alexander had conquered among themselves. Thus you have these four heads which ended up directing the government and the empire of Greece. This empire, which had the great speed and skill of a leopard, was, upon its death, brought down to four segments.

A Mongrel (The Roman Empire)

This fourth beast empire incorporated into itself features indeed from the previous three world empires. But it was quite different from them. To a greater degree than in the preceding three animal empires, this fourth beast was dreadful to behold; it was terrifying to people; and, it was very strong. The animal had iron teeth, which indicated both its strength and its brutality and dealing with conquered people. If there's anything that was true of the Romans, it was certainly that they had iron teeth. They were extremely brutal.

Daniel saw that this beast was one that devoured; it crushed; and, it trampled with its feet, whatever remained of the previous kingdoms, and whatever stood in its path. It was characteristic of the Roman Empire to ruthlessly destroy the cultures of the peoples they conquered. Society had gone from bronze now to iron. It had degenerated even more. As the quality of the metal degenerated, the hardness increased. With Alexander the Great and the Greeks, they had a respect for the cultures they conquered, and they tried to encourage that. Alexander the Great had a great respect for the Jews, and when he conquered Palestine, he himself bowed down before the high priest. When his generals complained that he didn't bow down to the priests of the religions of the people they had conquered, Alexander had an insight that was quite interesting, because he said, "I did not bow down to their high priest, but I bowed down to the God he represents." Somehow, the God of the Jews made an impact on the mind of Alexander the Great.

However, Rome itself was not like that. They didn't care about the values of other people's cultures. When they came in, they wanted to do one thing – to establish the Pax Romana, to establish the peace of Rome. They wanted law; they wanted order; they wanted roads; they wanted to have sea lanes open; they wanted to have commerce; they wanted to have prosperity; and, they wanted to open people up to the good life in every way possible. So, what they did with their captives was to kill them by the tens of thousands, and equally backfill with so many slaves, as it was a result of their conquest. Rome was vindictive, furthermore, in its conquest, to a degree that was not found in previous empires. If you resisted Rome, Rome really exercised its vengeance. It was determined to get even. Rome did not want to elevate the civilization of conquered nations, but simply to crush them underfoot, and to put them into a fearful submission.

This mongrel beast that Daniel observed had ten horns on its head. Daniel sees suddenly a little horn rise among these ten horns. Verse 8: "While I was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little one came up among them, and three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it, and behold, this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth uttering great boasts." So, Daniel sees a little horn which rises among these ten big horns, and the little horn rips out three of these horns by the roots, meaning that it conquers three of the nations and kings represented by these large horns. And the little horn, which is the antichrist, has human eyes, and a mouth speaking boastfully. These identify it as a human being; namely, the antichrist.

In verses 9-12, we have a vision of someone called the ancient of days. That is God the Father. Daniel says in verse 9, I kept looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days took His seat." Daniel sees thrones of judgment set up with a central throne for God the Father, the Ancient of Days: "His vesture was like white snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames, and its wheels were a burning fire."

In our current readings in our faculty prayer meetings in the academy, we are in the book of Ezekiel, and we have been reading about Ezekiel's wheels and chariots. We have been reading about the four angelic cherubim angels that control this chariot throne of God. That's what it is. Ezekiel tells how the wheels were intersected, with one wheel at a right angle to another wheel, and that the four living creatures looked out in four different directions, each with a different face, representing animal and human faces, representing various things, and how this chariot would move in any direction by itself. These living creatures never had to turn their heads. There was always one looking to what was going on. These creatures were guarding the holiness of God.

This chariot is what Ezekiel saw suddenly removed from within the holy of holies, where the glory of God resided over the mercy seat, when God finally said, "This is the end. This people has become so degenerate. They have brought the phallic cults and the Baal worship into My very temple, and Ezekiel is explaining to the exiles born in Babylon, who are in captivity, why God has exercised this terrible judgment upon them. Ezekiel sees the chariot move from the holy of holies to the threshold of the court. Then it moves across the threshold of the temple, and moves out across the valley to the Mount of Olives, almost as if God is looking back one time, longingly, at the people, as Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and then the chariot throne of God moves out toward heaven.

It was at that point in time that the presence of God departed from among the Jewish people. The temple that existed in Jesus' day was no longer aglow in the holy of holies with the presence of God. He had departed, and He will never return until the Millennial Kingdom begins, and the temple of the millennium is built. Then God on his chariot throne will once more come back and reside in the midst of his people.

So, this is the background of what Daniel sees of God in all His glory, described as always, with fire and flames, in His chariot, with its burning wheels, and a river of fire was flowing and coming out from before Him.

Furthermore, Daniel sees thousands upon thousands who are attending the Ancient of Days, God the Father, and myriads upon myriads that were standing before Him. The court sat and the books were opened. In this scene of blazing glory, Daniel sees thousands beyond numbering, saints and angels, who are ministering to God in His holy courtroom. God calls His court to order, and now proceeds to read the indictment against the Jewish people, and against, in time, the gentile nations to whom he has entrusted the care of the earth, while the Jews are in their apostasy and scattered around the world. The records of God are opened to judge what the gentiles have done with their stewardship of governing God's world.

The boastful words against God of the little horn, the antichrist, are brought to an end by the destruction of his empire. We read in verse 11, "We kept looking because of the sound of the boastful words which the little horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain; his body was destroyed; and, given to the burning fire." The judgment of God, the Ancient of Days, is to destroy this antichrist and the final expression of the fourth beast government.

The little horn is consigned to the lake of fire at the Second Coming of Christ, thus terminating this final stage of the Roman Empire. You can read about that in Revelation 19:20. The destruction of the Roman Empire finally, in its union of ten nations stage, also terminates all the other elements that have been carried over into this empire from previous world empires. The image of Nebuchadnezzar collapses altogether, and everything that smacks of man's doing; man's arrogance; and, man's sin nature is blown away like dust across the field by the winds.

So, we read in verse 12: "As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but an extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time;" that is, they lived on in Rome. So will end, with this destruction that Daniel sees here, that period that the Bible calls "the times of the gentiles," and the restoration of Israel to its land.

In verses 13-14, we have the Kingdom of God on this earth. Verse 13 actually is picking up the narrative that was stopped at verse 10. Verses 11-12 are explanatory.

Son of Man

Verse 13: "I was looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a Son of Man was coming. And He came up to the Ancient of Days, and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed." That clearly describes the Millennial Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Messianic Kingdom on this earth – a kingdom which will exist forever after the period of the Millennial Kingdom comes to an end.

He is surrounded by clouds. Clouds in the Bible are associated with deity. You can see that in Mark 13:26, Mark 14:62, and Revelation 1:7. Clouds are associated with deity, and this is associated with Jesus Christ.

The title "Son of Man" is clearly in contrast to the bestial characteristic of the rulers of the world empires of Satan which Daniel has seen portrayed here. The Son of Man is, furthermore, the one who is going to be given a worldwide kingdom to replace the kingdoms of Satan on this earth. This Kingdom of God will be a world government. It will last forever. The title "Son of Man" connotes more than humanity. You can see that this must refer to not only Christ in His humanity, but since He was a single person, a God-man, it also applies to Him in His deity. When the Jews read the term "Son of Man," they immediately understood that it was a technical term for the coming Messiah Savior who would be God. It connotes deity. In Christ, it was a God-man. Thus He was Son of Man: 100% human; and, 100% divine. The Messiah Savior of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ, is what is in view here.

Let me show you a couple of passages from the book of Mark. In Mark 2:10-11, Jesus says, "But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,' He said to the paralytic. 'I say to rise, take up your palette, and go home." Here it is very clear that the title "Son of Man" connoted one who has divine powers. Jesus said there can be no question that deity has the power to forgive sins. That is a power which is associated with one who is called "the Son of Man." Jesus was speaking of Himself, and He said, "What is harder? To forgive a person sin you can't see whether it's forgiven or not, or for Me to heal this paralyzed man (that all of you know), and to make him walk? How will I demonstrate my deity?" So, He said to the paralytic man, "Stand up and walk." And he did. That shut their mouths. They could accuse him of faking deity when He forgave the man sins, but they could not accuse him of faking deity when He healed him in this miraculous way. Only the God who created the body can make it work right. So, "Son of Man" here is associated with one who is exercising divine authority.

Noticed Mark 8:29-31. Here the title "Son of Man" is identified with the divine Messiah, the Christ, who would be sacrificed for the sins of the world: "And He continued by questioning them: 'But who do you say that I am?' Peter answered and said to him, 'You are the Christ (You're the Messiah). The moment Peter said that, he was declaring that Jesus was deity, because the Messiah was going to be God (divine).

Verse 30: "He warned them to tell no one about Him." Jesus, at this point, was now moving out of a public ministry, and getting ready to pay the sacrifice for the sins of the world. His rejection had now been almost complete: "And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days, rise again." Of whom was he speaking? Obviously, He is speaking of Himself. He was speaking of Himself, the very one that Peter had just identified as divine, the Christ, the Messiah, the God. And here he applies to Himself, in his humanity, the word "Son of Man" associated with His deity. So, He's taking this term, "Son of Man" from Daniel, because clearly in Daniel, the Son of Man is someone who is more than human – someone who is divine.

You can find this sacrifice of Christ for sin as the Son of Man repeated in Mark 9:31, Mark 10:33, and Mark 10:45. Mark uses it several times. Notice Mark 8:38. Again, here the title is associated with the Lord Jesus Christ as the divine Son of God returning to heaven in judgment: "For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." What is He talking about? Here, the God, Jesus, is going to return from heaven with His angels, in His glory, to take His kingdom. He says, "Those of you who are ashamed of Me in Satan's world; those of you who try to keep it under cover that you are Christians; and, those of you who hesitate to speak out for Me and to proclaim the gospel in the full council of the Word of God, I'm going to be ashamed of you when it comes time for us to sit down and pass out rewards. You will be treated according to the shame that you exercised concerning me." But here again, it is the Son of Man who is coming back in the glory of God.

Move back to the Mark 2:28. Here, this title is associated with the role of deity in making the rules for moral conduct. Only God can do that. Yet the person who is doing this is called "Son of man:" "Consequently, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." In the verse before, there was a discussion about what you can do on the Sabbath Day, under emergency conditions, and what you can't do. Here, the disciples which have been criticized, by the religious leaders for going through a grain field and picking corn in order to eat as they walked through, that they were working on the Sabbath day. Jesus says, "Hey, I'm the one who made the rules about the Sabbath Day (about no work), and this is OK. If your ox falls in a ditch, and he's going to die over the weekend, it's all right to work and get him out of the ditch. That's not violating the Sabbath Day rule. And if you are hungry and need to eat as you walk through this field, it's all right to pick the grain to feed yourself. That doesn't break the rule." However, He is saying this as the one who can determine what is morally right and wrong as the Son of Man. This indicates again that He is deity.

When Jesus called Himself the Son of Man in Daniel 7:13-14, all of the Jews knew that He was claiming to be God. This passage of Daniel 7:13-14, where Jesus is described as the Son of Man who will comes to receive His kingdom, is fulfilled in Revelation 19:15:16. What Daniel predicts here is described in Revelation 19:15-16: "And from His mouth (from the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, on His return) comes a sharp sword so that with it He was might the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron, and He treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh, He has the name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords."

This is precisely what was predicted in Psalm 2:6-9: "The ancient of days says, 'I will create for My Son a kingdom over which He shall rule with a rod of iron." The Lord Jesus Christ is going to reign on this earth for 1,000 years. We read about that in Revelation 20:1-6. At the end of that millennial reign, we're told that He will hand the kingdom over to the Ancient of Days, God the Father, who will then appoint Jesus Christ as ruler over the Kingdom of God in eternity. In this way, the Millennial Kingdom will phase into the eternal kingdom of God that will exist throughout all eternity, ruled over by His Son. Yes, ruled on this very earth, because it will be a new earth, as well as a new heaven.

This handing over, in the conclusion of what Daniel saw in his vision, is described in 1 Corinthians 15:24-28, and we close tonight with this passage. The millennium is over. Righteousness has been established. Satan's final rebellion has been wiped out. All those who join him have now been sent into the lake of fire. Then comes the end when Jesus delivers the kingdom to God the Father, the Ancient of Days, and when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power (all that opposes Him), for He must reign until He has put all his enemies under his feet. And the last enemy (good news) that will be abolished is death. There will be no fear of death. It's already doomed. It may get us before the Lord returns, but it's not going to hold us.

"For He has put all things in subjection under His feet" (under the feet of the Son). But when he says, "All things are put in subjection," it is evident that He has accepted. God the Father is accepted, who put all things in subjection to him. And when all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all. Everything that was messed up by Satan when he rebelled against God in heaven, where God is the supreme preeminent one in the universe. God, the Ancient of Days, will now return to that position over all of His creation. He will once more be the pinnacle of everything that exists in this world. And the Lord Jesus Christ, as His Son, will be in His proper place under the authority of the Father, as we will be under the authority of the Son.

Daniel is perturbed by this fourth feast. This animal really catches his attention. The result is that he himself now finds that in his spirit, he's torn apart. His human spirit should be filled with doctrine that can explain this. He is upset because nothing is coming up, and he realizes that there's something of great importance concerning this fourth beast (this mongrel, nondescript animal) that he has not grasped. So, he proceeds to take action to get the details. The details which are presented to him, probably by the angel Gabriel, bring us back to Revelation 13:2, which is where we started. Then you will understand that verse. Please join us in the next session.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1990

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