Continuing in our series of prophecy and church history, this sermon traces the understanding of Daniel chapter 7, the second in Daniel’s end-time symbolic prophecies.

<p>Continuing in our series of prophecy and church history, this sermon traces the understanding of Daniel chapter 7, the second in Daniel’s end-time symbolic prophecies.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Dalton SDA Church

Prophecy and Church History

Chester Clark

A Great Awakening

Foundations of Bible Prophecy

Horns, Winds, and Eagles’ Wings

The Most Dependable Time Prophecy

We're continuing to look at how the early pioneers during, towards the end of the second great awakening came to an understanding that Jesus was coming soon.

And so today we're going to be taking a look at Daniel chapter 7.

Last week we did take a look at Daniel chapter 2 and Daniel 2 is sort of the introduction to symbolic Bible prophecy.

Daniel 7 continues it and you'll remember that in the book of Daniel we learn basic principles to help us understand end time Bible prophecy.

We learned last week there are a number of principles that we see because in the book of Daniel we have the Prophecy and then right after that we have the interpretation so that gives us the understanding of how prophecy works We saw that image of Daniel chapter 2 and how Daniel explained to King Nebuchadnezzar that it represented empires to come.

Today we're going to be looking at Daniel chapter 7.

Daniel chapter 7 continues down the same vein of Daniel chapter 2 but it teaches us additional principles.

Now a couple weeks ago we talked about different ways of interpreting Bible prophecy, symbolic prophecy.

There are 3 main schools of prophetic interpretation, historicism, futurism, and preterism.

We talked about how Preterism says the prophecies have pretty much all been done and fulfilled soon after the time of the prophet.

They're basically contemporaneous prophecies.

Futurism says they're basically all in the future.

There's this gap and the prophecies are going to be re-activated you might say when, for example, the tribulation begins during the rapture or whatever the event may be depending on the interpreter.

Historicism says the prophecy began with the time of the prophet and continued with an unbroken stream of predictions until the very time of the end.

Now if you look at these 3 schools of thought, if you look at these 3 schools of thought, what do we see here?

Do we see the prophecy of Daniel chapter 2 more or less representing historicism, preterism, or futurism.

And I say that it's clearly teaching the concepts of historicism.

That is to say that the prophecy began at the time of the prophet, and we have this timeline that's representing the prophet.

We can follow it down historically, event after event after event, until we find the events that aren't yet fulfilled, and that's where we are, right?

We're somewhere along that stream of prophetic time and we're going to be looking today in Daniel chapter 7 at another another 1 of those prime characteristics of historicism.

The fact that the little horn of Daniel chapter 7 is sometimes referred to as the Antichrist is not something that's yet to come in the future, as Futurism says, but it's actually something that's already come about.

And we're going to look at that more carefully.

So I believe from the very first vision of Daniel chapter 2, I believe we have good, compelling evidence that Daniel is teaching us to interpret in time symbolic Bible prophecy in the manner that historicism interprets it.

And so we're going to look at that more carefully as we go along.

So let's go ahead and begin here with Daniel chapter 7.

If you have your Bibles you can turn with me there.

We're going to notice that the interpretation is found in the same chapter, although not all the symbols are necessarily interpreted in the same chapter.

We do find the explanation, Daniel's given by Gabriel, by the angel, in the same chapter.

Other symbols we can find in other parts of the Bible, and like Daniel chapter 2, it follows a historicist stream of prophetic time, and it teaches us a new principle that we're going to be looking at here today.

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 spake and said, I in my night vision by night, I saw in my night vision by night, and behold, the 4 winds of heaven strove upon the great sea.

Now the 4 winds of heaven are generally, you're referred to in the Bible, the winds of heaven, the 4 winds, they're sort of like the east, the west, the north, the south, sort of like from all directions.

So you can imagine a storm that's blowing from all directions.

That's sort of the picture that Daniel's seeing.

And the storm is blowing on the sea, right?

We find it as a symbol of, in end-time Bible prophecy in Revelation chapter 17, God explains what waters represent when it says the sea, the waters which you saw in verse 15 are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.

So what Daniel is seeing here is the winds blowing upon the sea.

He's seeing strife and commotion in the populated areas of the world.

Now how do we know that winds represent strife?

You can keep your finger here in Daniel 7 if you'd like.

I'm just going to read you 1 verse from Jeremiah chapter 51.

I want you to see an example of how these prophecies are interpreted.

How William Miller and the other early expositors who were discovering the meaning of these prophecies, how they would have interpreted them.

In Jeremiah chapter 51 it says in verse 1, Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up against Babylon and against them that dwell in the midst of them that rise up against me, a destroying wind." Do you see that?

And if you keep reading, it talks about war, about archers and swordsmen.

And verse 4 says, the slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and they that are thrust through in her streets." What's that wind that Jeremiah is using to describe?

So, in Daniel chapter 7, what we're finding is that there are, Daniel's seeing the populated region of the world in strife and commotion.

And out of these strifes and commotions, verse 3, 4 great beasts came up from the sea, different from 1 another.

Verse 4 says, the first was like a lion and had eagle's wings.

And I beheld till the wings 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." Now here this first symbol, we don't have Daniel saying, you are this head of gold, like we do in Daniel chapter 2, but we're going to see in the explanation to follow that it's pretty clear Daniel's talking about the same 4 kingdoms.

Now if we want to see that in the Bible, we can compare Scripture with Scripture, and this is what Miller and his associates did.

They found, for example, in Jeremiah 4 and verse 7, the nation of Babylon was in fact described by a contemporary prophet of Daniel as a lion.

It says this, the lion has come up from his thicket and the destroyer of nations is on his way.

He has gone forth from his place to make your land desolate, your cities will be laid waste, without an inhabitant." The prophet Jeremiah is predicting the destruction that Babylon would bring, and what does he call Babylon?

Very Clearly here, this is a prophecy that would not have been hard for them to understand.

And you know, what God is doing here is not an unusual thing, is it?

Don't we still represent nations with animals today?

When I was in Alaska a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to see the bald eagle.

And in fact, I should have brought some pictures.

At first, it was like, wow, there's a bald eagle, you know.

And we were excited and trying to get every picture.

And after about, I don't know, a few hundred of them, you start to say, oh, there's a bald eagle.

Although my little niece and nephew were still happy whenever they found an eagle as we were driving.

But we use animals to represent kingdoms.

Anybody remember what the former USSR was represented by?

And these wings, these eagle's wings, notice what it says in Deuteronomy chapter 28 in verse 49, the Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand.

So we understand wings to be symbolic of speed and rapidity and quickness, especially in military might.

And this describes the nation of Babylon.

This was, in fact, Babylon's own symbol, we find out.

And we have here a picture of the recreation of the gate of Babylon.

And throughout the reliefs and the ceramic tiles of the city of Babylon, the lion with eagle's wings was prominently featured.

You see here, you see the lion and You can even see the wings that were reflected in this relief or in these ceramic tiles.

This star gate was constructed by Nebuchadnezzar in around 575 BC.

And it was the eighth gate of the city of Babylon, but it was the main gate, the primary gate.

And over this were 2 lions, actually with another animal in the middle, but the 2 lions facing each other.

You're only seeing the left side of this artwork that was over the main entrance of this city.

So the lion is prominently featured in the bricks, in the artwork of Babylon.

And this is, this is what we can learn from Daniel chapter 7.

Daniel chapter 7 we are seeing God again using symbols to depict reality, right?

Different symbols, not the metal, not the image or the idol that would appeal to a, you know, an idolater in Daniel chapter 2, the dream, the Nebuchadnezzar.

But now he's using animals as a symbol of different empires.

And this is how the explanation came about.

When it talks about the explanation, He says in verse 17 of Daniel 7, these great beasts which are 4 are 4 kings which shall arise out of the earth.

Now some might read there and say, well, that's just Nebuchadnezzar then, 4 kings, right?

The Bible uses the word kings and kingdoms, it's more like thrones.

The Bible uses these terms interchangeably in Daniel chapter 7, verse 23 for example, it says the fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon the earth.

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Prophecy and Church History

Horns, Winds, and Eagles’ Wings

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Recorded

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The School with No Graduation

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