Episode Transcript
Alright, and if you'll take God's precious word and turn to the book of Daniel chapter 7, Daniel chapter 7 And God willing, we'll continue our study verse by verse through this marvelous book.
I tell you, I have really, really enjoyed.
Teaching through the book of Daniel and chapter 7 has been exceptionally rich to me, and my study is very grateful for it.
The title of the message this morning is Understanding the Animals.
Understanding the animals, boy Peter would love this message, wouldn't he?
Understanding the animals.
Daniel chapter 7 has been an amazing chapter teaching us the fascinating truth about end times.
And also feeding us with rich doctrine that we use in our times today.
In verse 2, Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of the heavens drove upon the great sea.
And we learned that the four winds of the heaven are four angels striving together to affect God's heavenly agenda here on earth.
And we also learned that the Great Sea represents the collective mass of fallen men who are unstable as water, from which Godless political powers are formed, which are represented as beasts in Daniel's vision.
I tell you, when I watch some of these evil people trying to gain power in our nation.
And there's a direct relationship, if you'll notice, between these Socialists and Communists Between what they believe politically and what they believe spiritually.
There's a direct correlation.
And the attempt of them trying to form here in the United States and rear up their ugly heads if you could just picture that sea and an animal trying to raise up out of it.
And so these are the collective mass of fallen men that we're looking at here in the book of Daniel.
And the beasts that we see, they're godless political powers that form and that rise.
Rise up out of it, represented by these beasts.
And now, in verse 3, if you'll look with me there, Daniel said, and four great beasts came up From the sea, diverse one from another.
And again, we learned last week that these beasts are kingdoms of fallen men, who, having not the Spirit of God in them, live and act like savage animals.
Animals instead of saintly men.
And if you haven't listened to the previous chapters in, or excuse me, the previous message.
Messages in chapter 7, then I highly encourage you to go to our know I'm saved Bible teaching podcast And listen this week, so you can catch up to where we are and better understand this chapter.
Now, with all that in mind.
It's time to move on to verse 4 this morning and examine the beast that Daniel saw coming up out of the sea.
Look with me in verse 4.
It begins by saying, the first.
The first.
Now, the word first is what we call an ordinal number.
ORD, if you're taking notes, O-R-D-I-N-A-L ordinal.
And it means that it indicates a particular order, ORD, a particular order that something comes in.
For example, if three people We're watching a movie in a theater, then that's simply three people in a theater.
One Two, three.
That's a cardinal number, C-A-R-D-I-N-A-L, a cardinal number.
But if those same three people were standing in line waiting to buy a ticket to get into the theater, Then we wouldn't be counting them according to their number, one, two, three.
We would be counting them according to their position in line, their order in line, first, second, and third.
Now you can't have First, second, and third, unless you first have one, two, and three, right?
And so that's why one, two, and three are cardinal numbers, meaning they are prime numbers.
The word cardinal means prime or or or Or the head, the chief.
So they're prime numbers, numbers that the ordinal numbers depend on.
And by the way, When you're thinking of the word cardinal, you may think of a bird.
That bird's red.
But if you think spiritually, what do you think of when you think of a cardinal?
A religious figure in the Catholic Church.
Y'all ever seen them?
They also dress in red.
Because of the cardinal bird, that's red.
They dress in red, in the word cardinal meaning chief or prime.
They are the head priests over the subordinate priests, which is why they're called cardinals.
So Daniel had a vision about four beasts.
That's the cardinal number.
But now we learn not only about how many beasts he saw.
But we see now that these beasts came in a particular order, first, an ordinal number, because he says first.
And that tells us that Daniel didn't see these beasts all at once come up out of the sea.
They didn't just pop up, and he said, I saw four beasts.
This morning I was eating my oatmeal, which I love on Sunday mornings.
Listening to my sermon notes that I wrote and watching these hummingbirds all over the bird feeder.
There was no order.
They were just there.
I counted six.
That was a max I counted.
It's hard, but at one time, you know, but I counted six.
And I saw them all at one time, but had I seen one pop up, then another pop up Then another pop-up.
It would have been first, second, third, fourth.
So these are not, didn't just pop up all at once.
But they came in a particular order of time in earth's history, you see?
One.
Later, the second, later, the third.
And so The first beast being first, it identifies the beginning of this prophetic timeline.
Does that make sense?
It's when the first beast rises, that's when the prophetic clock starts to tick.
Okay?
And Daniel said the first beast, if you look back in your text, was like a lion.
And again, as we have already learned, these beasts represent political powers.
They're world empires that would rise over a course of Earth's history.
And what we have to understand is the traits of these animals representing these kingdoms, those traits are illustrating the attributes of the kingdoms they represent.
Okay?
So, the beasts coming up from the sea, they're not monsters that will be terrorizing the earth in the last days.
I remember when I was a kid, I'd read the book of the Revelation.
Where I'd read prophecies like this when I was a kid, and not knowing any better, I thought, man, in the last days, we're going to have all these monsters walking.
You ever thought that before?
Anyone ever thought that?
A lot of people thought that. that you have all these we'll have a beast that has these heads and and and a lion with like with wings flying no it's nothing like that This is symbolism.
It's real, it's true, it's historic, but it's illustrative.
It's illustrating something for us because a picture paints Thousand words, right?
And so they're not monsters, they're not sea monsters.
So don't get the idea there will ever be a lion with wings flying through the sky before Jesus comes.
They're not monsters, they're kingdoms.
That were and shall be ruling the earth from Daniel's time until the end time.
And the animals Like, are being likened, they're being compared to illustrate the characteristics of these kingdoms.
Now, let me give you an example.
Here, the first beast was like a what?
It was like a lion.
Okay?
So the first kingdom that Arises from the sea that starts the prophetic clock ticking is like a lion.
And what attributes stand out about a lion when you think of a lion?
Do you you I mean when I think of a koala bear a koala bear I think of something I want to hug right When you think of a lion do you think of something that's snugly and soft and innocent you think something that's fierce don't you It's fierce.
And so a lion is the king of the jungle.
It's the apex predator.
When we describe somebody who is confident, bold, unafraid, we don't say, that person is bold as an antelope.
We don't say that, do we?
We say that person is bold as a lion.
We may say they're swift as an antelope.
And if we had an animal like this coming out, we could use that characteristic to describe that kingdom.
But right now, this is a lion.
So the leadership of the first kingdom that Daniel saw rising up from the earth was bold and fierce like a lion, the apex predator, the king of the jungle.
Kingdom had absolute confidence in their capability of ruling the world and staying on top.
Now let's look at another attribute of this kingdom.
Daniel said it was not only bold as a lion, but look what it said, and had eagle's wings.
Meaning, the nation was not only bold and powerful, but it was very proud. and it was a very glorious empire, lifting itself in pride high above the fellow nations. as an eagle flies high above the earth.
Now, listen to how God described one certain kingdom in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 49, verse 16.
God said, Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine heart O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill.
Though thou shouldest make thy nest, as set with me, high as the what, as the eagle.
I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord.
So what do we see when we're comparing the prophecy through Jeremiah to the prophetic dream in Daniel?
This lion having wings like an eagle, we see that prophetically speaking, an eagle represents a kingdom here.
That has lifted itself up very, very high.
God said, though you're as what high as an eagle.
And what happens when a kingdom gets too big for its bridges?
What happens when a kingdom gets too high?
God brings it down.
The Bible says pride goes before a fall, right?
And so.
What we're going to be looking at here, since this lion has wings like an eagle, it goes up very, very high, but then it's going to have To fall, God's going to bring it down.
So God said, I will bring thee down from thence, is what he said through Jeremiah.
And this is why there were four beasts that Daniel saw.
Because all the beasts, they kept lifting themselves up in pride, and so God would have to keep knocking them back down.
And replace them with the next world empire, which is then represented by the next beast in our prophecy Now look back with me in Jeremiah 49, 16 again.
God says, Thy terribleness hath deceived thee and the pride of thine heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that means up high, that holdest the height. of the hill, though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from thence.
I'm going to bring you down from the high place.
So this bold nation That had eagle's wings, lifting itself up in pride and vainglory.
And Daniel said, Look back in the text, I beheld till the wings thereof were what?
plucked.
Now, do you see how all this has fallen together?
It lifted itself up high, this nation did, high like an eagle, and God says, I'm going to take care of that.
I'm going to pluck those wings.
And when God plucks the feathers from those wings, what happens to the lion?
It's going to come down.
Thank you for the sound effects back there.
I appreciate that.
It was nice.
So he says, Daniel says, I beheld, in other words, I watched this kingdom till the wings thereof were plucked.
In other words, till God brought it down.
Now, picture a kingdom flying so high above the rest.
And then suddenly, God knocks that kingdom down.
That's what Daniel saw.
God knocked it down.
Look back in your text, and it was lifted up from the earth.
Now, that sounds kind of Like you know, it's contradicting itself, doesn't it?
God knocked it down when it was so high.
And Etre knocked it down so high, God then lifted it up from the earth.
Is that contradicting itself?
No.
This is the order of what's taking place in that kingdom.
What's going to happen is that kingdom was really, really high.
God plucks its wings, it falls, it has a terrible, terrible fall, a crash.
But then God was merciful to that kingdom.
He didn't let it die immediately.
He took it and gave it a small revival and brought it back up.
But makes it stand on the earth.
It doesn't raise it back up to its former glory.
Okay?
That kind of reminds me, by the way, of Israel.
Whenever they came back from the captivity, they were allowed to rebuild the temple.
But the Bible says the temple did not have the former glory.
The first temple.
And that's what we're looking at here.
So, not only would this proud kingdom fall, so it would no longer be like an eagle, but after that it was lifted up from the earth, it would no longer be like a lion.
So when the feathers are plucked, it's no longer like an eagle.
But when it comes back up from the earth, it's no longer like a lion.
Daniel said, Its wings were plucked, then it was lifted up from the earth.
Look back in your text and made to stand upon the feet.
As a man.
See the difference now?
No longer like an eagle, no longer like a man.
No longer soaring, now standing, and he's like a man.
So this kingdom would first function like a lion.
Function like an eagle, but ultimately would stand like a man.
Now, by the way, notice that after the fall of the First Nation, it would be made to stand upon the feet.
Again, what do we do when we get knocked down?
We try to get back up on our feet again.
And that's the imagery being used here.
When God lifted this nation back on his feet, it doesn't stand like a lion, but a man.
Now, notice this now.
Daniel said, in a man's heart, see in your text, a man's heart was given to it.
This is a complete transformation of this first kingdom.
These are beasts rising up out of the sea.
Now remember what we learned a couple of weeks ago and last week as well?
They're called beast because on the sixth day God created all these Beasts and the beasts, remember, were the wild animals.
You had cattle and you had beasts, you had creeping things.
You had those three categories.
The beasts were the wild animals, like a lion, okay, like a bear.
And so what happens here is we saw that the beasts were different than people because God gave man a spirit.
So God could communicate with man and man could know spiritual things.
Jesus said, God is spirit. and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Animals are the most unspiritual creatures you'd ever know.
You can sit down and try to have a devotion with them.
They'll look at you, but it's not going to register.
You can read the Bible to them.
You can talk to them about Jesus.
It's not going to register.
They have no spiritual aptitude, absolutely none.
But watch what happens to this nation.
It's a beast that has eagle's wings.
Eagle's wings get plucked.
The beast comes crashing down.
When that beast stands back up again, it's not standing like a beast, it's standing like a man.
And now, what kind of heart is inside that former lion?
It's now the heart of a man.
You see what we have here?
We have God bringing great humiliation and bringing a man down so he can raise him up to know him.
Isn't that amazing?
He's now standing up as a man.
He now has a man's heart.
He now has a spirit inside him.
And he can know God.
This is a spiritual revival in this nation that Daniel foresaw in his prophetic dream.
No longer is the leader of this nation going to be confident in his military and economic might.
Is he going to suffer fear and doubt as a man like everybody else?
But most importantly, his faith.
Will be in God.
And what nation could this possibly represent that Daniel was dreaming about?
Because once we identify this nation, That's when the prophetic clock starts ticking, right?
That's when the next world empire that comes up You'll know if because if we identify this one, historically, the next world empire that comes up is going to be the next beast.
The next world empire that comes up after that is going to be the beast after that, the third beast. then we have the fourth beast, you see?
And so it's important to understand this.
And to answer this question, all we have to do is go back and look at some of our prior texts.
And one of them is what Daniel said in Daniel 7, verse 1.
When did Daniel have this dream?
Daniel 7:1 says, In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon.
Daniel had a dream.
The Babylonian Empire is the lion with eagle's wings that rose up from the sea.
Okay?
If you'll remember what we learned in the previous chapters, you'll recall that Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, who preceded Belshazzar, was described in one of Daniel's previous dreams that we studied as a tree.
You remember that?
And that tree was taller than any other tree in Daniel's drama.
I mean, it was so high of a tree in the forest, it overshadowed and shaded all the other trees.
That first prophetic dream corresponds with this prophetic dream.
And now, Daniel didn't dream about the other nations in that dream.
He dreamt about Babylon.
But notice what happens.
The height of the tree, so much higher than the other trees, that corresponds to the eagle.
Right?
The lion that had eagle's wings bringing it up so high.
What happened in the first dream?
It got so high, it intruded into a place where only God had the right to allow.
I will be like the Most High.
I will ascend, right?
He intruded into the place where only God had the right to allow.
So, what happened in Daniel's first dream?
That tree was ordered to be cut down.
Now, what happens when a tree gets cut down here?
Like a lion whose wings are clipped.
It falls.
So there was the great fall back down to the earth.
But what happened?
God said, Don't let the tree die.
Remember, leave the stump.
And when Nebuchadnezzar, when he, that tree, when he fell, do you remember what God said would happen to Nebuchadnezzar?
like a beast, he would be out grazing in the grass, eating grass like an ox.
Having no spiritual understanding whatsoever, until finally God calls him to stand back up on his feet. and let him come to his senses.
At which time, what happened?
Nebuchadnezzar became a believer.
That is him standing back upon his feet now as a man, with a man's heart given to him.
All right now Daniel chapter 4, if you'll go back there with me and let's review what we just read about.
Let's read what we just talked about.
The tree grew.
Look, if you're with me, Daniel 4, verse 11.
The tree grew.
And it was strong.
And the height thereof reached unto heaven.
See?
That's Babylon.
That's the eagle. the eagle's wings, and the sight thereof to all the ends of the earth.
That's the domain.
In other words, he ruled the world.
It was a world empire.
Verse 12, The leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all.
The beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the bows thereof.
There you see it, as high as the fowls of the air, see, like an eagle.
And all flesh was fed of it.
I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and behold, a watcher, that's an angel.
And an Holy One came down from heaven.
He cried aloud and said, Thus, hew down the tree, or cut down the tree, and cut off his branches.
Shake off his leaves and scatter his fruit.
Let the beasts get away from under it and the fowls from his branches.
That's The wings being, the feathers being plucked off.
That's the great fall of Babylon that took place.
Verse 15.
Nevertheless, In other words, even though it falls, even though his wings get plucked and it falls down to the ground, leave the stump of his roots in the earth. even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of the field, and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his, that is the ruler of that kingdom, his portion be with the beasts.
In the grass of the earth.
Because that's what he was.
He was a beast.
He was the first beast.
That rose up from the sea.
Babylon was.
God cut that tree down, and it's the eagle's feathers plucked from it.
And when God told the angel to leave the stump, that is speaking of the kingdom remaining in power, but no longer soaring like the eagle.
Eagle.
And when Daniel said, the lion was given the heart of a man.
It means he came back to his senses, and now, no longer like a beast, he has spiritual insight.
As he humbled himself before God.
Daniel 4:34.
Look with me now.
And at the end of the days, This is Nebuchadnezzar the king speaking after the end of his days, being in that field like a beast.
He says, And at the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine Eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High.
And I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation.
Now, what's Nebuchadnezzar doing?
Now, no longer like a beast, he's standing on his feet like a man, and a man's heart's been given to him.
He has a great spiritual awakening.
He's praising the Most High God.
Yes, he's.
He's no longer up trying to soar up to God's place.
He's now standing in the place that God created him to be on earth.
And he's looking up to God and saying, I am now where I belong.
And God, in my heart, you're now where you belong.
That's what happened there in the book of Daniel.
Now we understand the animals, and now we know which kingdom the first animal was.
And now, all we have to do is follow this beastly trail historically.
Get you an Encyclopedia Britannica.
Just watch the next World Kingdom come up.
And you'll know what is the next beast.
And we'll just follow this beastly trail together.
From Babylon all the way to the end of time, which, Lord willing, will continue to do next week.
Father, we thank you so much for your wonderful word.
How mysterious.
But Father, in that mystery, in that mysterious detail, how insightful it is, how descriptive it is.
Lord, you leave nothing, Father, in our minds undone, dear Lord God, but you vividly paint for us, Lord.
The history and the prophecy that you're describing.
Thank you, Lord, for giving us this great understanding.
Thank you, Father, for giving mercy to Nebuchadnezzar.
And Father, I pray, dear Lord God, you'll bless us as we go from beast to beast to beast.
Until finally we go to the Son of God who comes down and who gives the beastly creatures, Father God.
Through the Holy Spirit, through His death, burial, and resurrection, the heart of men.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
