Episode Transcript
Take God's precious word, turn to the book of Daniel chapter 7.
Daniel chapter 7.
And God willing, we'll be expounding verse 5 this morning.
Daniel chapter 7, verse 5.
The title of the message is The Second Beast of the Sea.
The second beast of the sea.
In our study of Daniel chapter 7, we've seen four angels described as the four winds of the heaven.
Working to affect God's heavenly agenda here on earth in what Daniel calls the Great Sea.
So we've learned that the Great Sea represents the collective mass of fallen men from which these godless political powers, these godless world empires are formed.
And when they're formed and when they rise to power, Daniel sees them in his vision as these beasts rising up from that sea.
In Daniel 7, 3, Daniel said, And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.
Again, these beasts are kingdoms of fallen men who, not having the Spirit of God in them, live and act and rule.
As beasts instead of men filled with the Spirit of God.
Now, these kingdoms, remember, we learned last week, and the week before last, we've been learning this: the kingdoms are rising to power.
In order, one kingdom at a time in Daniel's vision.
They're not four beasts rising up simultaneously or collectively.
They're rising up.
In a particular order chronologically, reflecting the rise of these earthly powers over a course of time.
From Daniel's time until the end time is what we're looking at.
And we have shown conclusively last week.
That the time began with the rise of the Babylonian Empire.
That's the first beast, remember?
Which was represented by a lion that had eagle's wings.
Then those wings got plucked, and then the Lion fell and then it stood back up on its feet.
And do you remember the whole scenario that that lion did?
It rose.
It flew, it fell, then it stood.
It rose, it flew, it fell, then it stood.
And remember these animals' characteristics.
And actions reflect the characteristics of the nations they represent.
And if you haven't listened to the previous messages in chapter 7, I highly encourage you to go to our No I'm Saved Bible teaching podcast.
And listen to them this week so you can better understand this chapter and the imagery the Bible's using.
Now, as we move forward in this chapter this morning, we come to the second beast.
Daniel said, Look with me now in verse 5, and behold, Another beast.
That is, after the first beast of Babylon rose, flew And then fell and then stood.
Daniel saw another beast, meaning he saw another kingdom rise to power.
From the great sea of fallen men.
And Daniel said it was, look in your text, a second beast.
See that?
A second beast, meaning it represented the second or the next world empire that would rise and conquer the Babylonian empire that he was now in.
This is futuristic.
And so the Babylonian Empire was the first beast.
That's what was in power.
Babylon was whenever he had this prophetic vision.
But the second beast is what would come after Babylon.
And so for another beast to rise, what does that mean?
That means the previous beast has to fall, right?
You're not going to have two world empires.
That's not possible.
Okay?
So, for one empire to rule the whole world.
When that's that second or third or fourth empire rises, that means the previous one has to fall.
So it's when the second beast rises, that means the first beast is being defeated by the second beast in battle. is being conquered during our chronological timeline.
Now remember, just like any war, when the second beast rises, that second political power rises, it doesn't mean that the first beast Is or the people that belong to that first beast are completely destroyed.
It doesn't mean that.
What it does mean is that another Ruling world power has taken a different form.
Okay?
So the whole mass of mankind takes the form of a ruling power of this first beast.
That first beast then falls.
The world ruling power then takes another form of a second beast.
Okay?
So it's the same old thing.
It's still the kingdom of darkness.
Is still the old devil ruling through mankind the best that he can, trying to take over the world, trying to conquer what rightly belongs to God.
He's been doing that since Babel back in the book.
Book of Genesis.
And he's going to still keep trying to do that all the way to the time of the end, which is recorded for us in Revelation.
That's what that's all about.
One final push.
To raise a beast up out of the sea, out of the mass of fallen man And conquer the world, and the world completely denies God for good.
A complete and total rejection of their Creator.
That's what he's pushing for.
Okay?
And that's what the book of the Revelation is a lot about.
So now if you're taking notes, because we learned that this second beast has to defeat Babylon in order for it to rise.
And Babylon, the first beast, was defeated by the second beast in 539 BC.
539 BC.
Daniel chapter 7, verse 1 says In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream in visions of his head upon his bed.
Then he wrote the dream and told the sum of the matters.
Okay?
So the first year of Belshazzar is when this dream was given to Daniel.
And so this is going to give us the timeline when we get to this 539 BC.
Belshazzar was the king of Babylon, that first beast, when Babylon fell.
And he was conquered by the second beast.
And Daniel said he prophesied of their fall to the second beast in the first year of Belshazzar's reign.
Now, historians tell us.
That the first year of Belshazzar's reign was 555 BC.
So, in this particular prophecy, Daniel prophesied of the fall of Babylon and the rise of this other nation, and then the preceding nations that would come after it about 16 years before the second beast. conquered Babylon.
So what kingdom conquered Babylon?
Who is this second beast?
Well to answer this question all we have to do is go back and study history.
Because it's none of this was done in secret.
It was all done and played out for the world to see.
And we're going to do that here in just a moment.
But for right now, we want to show you that Daniel said that empire, look back in your text, was like to a bear.
You see that?
Like to a bear.
And the word like means it resembled a bear.
The characteristics of this second empire. resembled the characteristics of a bear.
And the Chaldean word translated bear literally means sluggish.
Because when you think of a bear, you don't think of it running like an antelope, do you?
You think of it just kind of, you know, to do, kind of going through the forest.
That's what they do.
So it's like a bear.
Now at the same time, a bear may just be kind of dope-de-dupe-de-dupe when it goes to the force, but a bear is very powerful, isn't it?
You don't want to cross a bear.
A bear is quite a powerful predator.
So, this second nation, like a bear. would be a powerful predator, but it wasn't going to break any speed records expanding its territory like Babylon did.
As far as predators are concerned, it was a notable beast.
But not as notable as what was the first beast?
A lion, remember?
So that first nation, Babylon. in every way was superior to the second nation.
That's important for us to remember.
It was superior.
And so the next empire would be strong like a bear. but it would be no match for the power of its empirical predecessor, Babylon.
Now, do you remember the first prophetic dream that Daniel had that we looked at months ago?
When he had a dream about the timeline of the empires that would come.
It wasn't a dream of different beasts of the earth.
It was a dream, not of different beasts of the earth rising from the same sea.
It was a dream about different substances of the earth that were all part of the same image.
Daniel chapter 2.
Look back there with me and we'll remind ourselves.
Daniel 2, verse 32 and 33.
Daniel said, This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass.
His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.
And we learned back then that the different substances ran down the image.
Remember, you had gold You had silver, you had brass, you had iron, and when you got down to the end of that image, down to the feet, you had iron and clay mixed together.
And we learned back then that the image, it was one image.
Because there's one world, and there is one power of darkness that tries to govern the fallen world of mankind.
That's the devil.
But in that one world you had different metals that go down to the very end of the feet.
Those different metals represented the different world empires.
And as you traveled down the image to the end, you were traveling down The chronological timeline of the future to the very end of the world as we know it.
And notice what happened.
It starts with gold.
Then it goes to silver.
What's better, silver or gold?
Which would you rather have?
Gold.
And then it goes from gold to brass.
I'm sorry, from silver to brass.
And what's more precious, the brass or the silver?
Well, the silver.
And then it goes to iron, right?
And so the gold is not as hard and strong as iron.
It's a softer metal, but it's much.
Much finer, right?
And so, what you end up seeing, then you get to clay and iron.
I mean, so what you see is this: as the world continues to go.
The atheists are going to tell you that man keeps getting better and better, keeps improving and improving.
What we're witnessing is just the opposite.
Man is getting crazier and crazier.
The world is getting goofy.
And the world empires are doing the same because it's made up of these crazy people that are occupying this world right now.
So as we continue to get further and further to the end of time, the Bible says. .
Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse.
And it says they'll be deceiving and being deceived.
We're going to watch a gradual Falling away till we get this great falling away.
And we're going to watch the nations, their refinement, their wisdom, their glory.
We're going to watch it.
Getting worse and worse and worse over time.
And so, it is the same way that you have these different nations going through the end of time.
Because eventually it got smote on the feet and the image was done, right?
And that was a picture of Jesus coming back, smiting the world empire that the devil rules on the feet, and then him ruling forever.
So as we're watching here these beasts rising up out of the sea, we will see also a gradual depreciation in the animals that represent these nations.
We go from a lion, the king of the jungle, to a bear.
Kind of like gold and silver.
You see how that works?
Different predators. popping up that are not going to be quite as great as the previous beast.
That are representing these nations.
All right?
So now, if you'll watch here Daniel said that this bear rose up from the sea, and what else did it do?
Look back in your text.
And it raised up itself on one side.
Now, what does that tell us?
It tells us this beast has more than one side, right?
It's got two sides, actually.
And so we see that this beast is different than the previous beast.
This beast raises itself up on one side, and that's quite an interesting state.
Statement, isn't it?
What does that mean for this bear to raise itself up on one side?
Well, first of all, we have to notice what the bear did not have.
The bear did not have a set of wings like the previous animal.
So when it's raising itself up, It's not soaring up super high like Babylon did.
Babylon was quite a world wonder.
Okay?
This next world empire.
Would be a fierce predator, it would be strong, but it would not achieve the glory of the Babylonian Empire.
It just would not.
Historically, it did not.
But what it did do was raise itself up on one side.
So again, what In the world, could that mean?
Well, we know that there's two sides to this one bear.
Okay?
And I believe these two sides are the front side and the back side.
If not, you're going to have a lopsided bear.
How many of y'all ever seen a bear walk like this?
You know, it raises itself up on the right side, but be lower on the left side.
That would be awkward, wouldn't it?
But if you looked at the front side and the back side, that would look more like a bear, wouldn't it?
Where you have a bear on its all fours.
Coming up from the sea, now you've got this next world empire, and what does that bear do?
What does a bear sometimes do?
It'll raise its front side up, won't it?
Now look what happens.
When that bear raises its front side up, the front side is now higher than the back side.
So what does this tell us?
What we're seeing here are two kingdoms that come together as one empire.
Two kingdoms that come together as one empire, and one of those kingdoms is going to be The superior kingdom.
You see, you're going to have a superior and inferior kingdom, but it's not two bears.
It's one bear.
So it's going to be one world empire, and one of those kingdoms is going to be higher than the other.
Okay?
So that's what we're looking at here.
So, well, again.
What bear is this?
What nation is this?
Daniel is speaking about something in the future.
But to understand what he's talking about, all we have to do is go back and look in the past.
Because when you study history, you will find that Babylon was conquered by what we call the Medo.
Persian Empire.
The Medo-Persian Empire.
In other words, the Medes, Media. and the Persians, Persia.
Okay?
The Medo-Persian Empire.
The Medes and Persians were basically two sets of Iranian people.
Iran has been in the news long before Donald Trump's reign, long before the 1970s and 80s and 90s and 2000s.
Iran's been in the news my whole life and it's never been good.
But here, Iran was in the prophetic news.
And what Daniel's saying is, the Iranians are about to conquer the Babylonians.
That's what he's saying.
Because when you go back and study history, that's what happened.
The Medes and the Persians were both Iranian people.
But they operated as two separate kingdoms.
You say, Brother Richard, why would you have Iranian people operating as two separate kingdoms?
That doesn't even make any sense.
The same reason you have North and South Korea.
It's the same thing.
The same reason, you remember Vietnam?
They're all Vietnamese.
But they operated as two different political entities.
And these were Iranian people, and they operated as Medians and Persians.
It's all history.
They had their different countries, but you know what happened?
The Persians eventually conquered the Medians.
And when they conquered them, They absorbed them.
And the two became one, even though they continued to be distinct.
It would be the same as North and South Korea.
One of them conquering the other, but then allowing themselves to join forces together in Try to rule the world.
You see, it'd be the same as that.
And that's what happened with the Medes and the Persians, okay?
Listen to how one secular historian describes it.
He says, Born around 600 B.
C. , Cyrus the Great didn't just establish the first Persian Empire, he transformed the political landscape of the ancient Near East.
As the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, Cyrus displayed remarkable leadership and strategic acumen.
He unified the Persian tribes under his rule and initiated a series of conquests that would reshape history.
But notice what he said.
He unified the Persian tribes under his rule.
Cyrus the Great.
The Persian, the bear raising up at top was the Persians, okay?
And the median was underneath.
All right?
So, Cyrus the Great of Persia.
Conquered the Median Empire, and the two worked together as one.
But since Persia was the leader of the bear, it was lifted up higher on the Persian side than the Median side.
Now you keep all that in mind.
And who can remember the ruler, who the ruler was after Persia conquered?
Babylon.
When the Medo-Persian Empire, do you remember?
Who was it?
Huh?
Darius.
Very good, Darius.
How old are you, Timothy?
Seven, seven years old.
Look at that.
How many of you grown-ups remember that?
All right, that's why people thinking that kids have to be over in a little children's church.
Getting entertained?
No, sir.
Keep them over here and let them listen to the grown-ups getting taught.
They can retain and learn far quicker than we can.
All right?
Bonus question.
Which of the two kingdoms did Darius belong to?
Persia or Media?
No.
Media, it's the only other side there is, right?
It says the only side there is Daniel 5.
Look back in Daniel 5.
Let's look at verse 30 and 31.
Daniel 5, 30 and 31 says, In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans, Chaldeans is Babylonians, slain.
Verse 31.
And Darius the Median, see that?
Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescundo years old.
So.
Darius is ruling that part of the world empire.
It was common.
No man can rule everything.
You have to have underlords.
That rule under the main folks like Cyrus the Great, all right?
So, Darius the Median takes the kingdom.
So, during the time When the Medo-Persian Empire conquers Babylon, when that second beast conquers the first beast, Daniel is still there.
And it is King Darius the Mede, that lower part of the Iranians. who was in charge of the realm of Babylon at that time.
And I believe this explains why the bear was raised up on one side.
And because Persia was the principle of the two.
Okay, what else did Daniel see in his vision?
He said the bear raised itself up on one side.
Look back in your text, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it.
Boy, this is a sight, isn't it?
You got a bear raising up.
It's got three ribs stuck in its mouth.
Now, these ribs are not in the bear's mouth like you would have a toothpick.
Or a piece of candy, or a cigarette, or something like that.
Why are these three ribs in a bear's mouth?
Well, man, if you like barbecue, then you know exactly what that bear is doing with those ribs.
You put ribs in your mouth to eat them.
And that's why these ribs were, look back here, text, between the teeth of it, not between its lips.
They're between the bear's teeth.
That bear is crunching down, enjoying him some good old soul man's barbecue.
All right?
So the and now look back at your text.
What does it say?
And they, that is those three ribs, said thus unto it.
So the ribs are talking.
I've eaten ribs.
I've never had one talk to me.
But what's happening in the prophecy is this: God is allowing these ribs to speak to clarify their meaning.
Why are they between the teeth of the bear?
So these ribs speak and they command the bear to do something.
In Daniel's ears, so Daniel could hear them.
And they tell the bear, they tell that Medo-Persian Empire to look back in your text: arise, devour much flesh.
Very fascinating.
Brother Shepherd speaking or teaching on Job this morning, how God delivers us From war.
In time of war, he delivers us from the power of the sword.
That word war.
Is based on a Hebrew root word that means to devour, to consume.
Isn't that something?
So naturally, This bear eating these ribs, he's devouring the ribs.
The ribs are telling him to devour them.
Arise, devour much flesh.
What they're saying is, get up. and conquer three kingdoms.
Three main kingdoms.
Because you've got three ribs.
Three mean something.
You get up and you conquer three kingdoms.
Now, there were three main kingdoms that the Medo-Persian Empire conquered.
Three main kingdoms that they conquered collectively together.
All right, and that is Babylon.
Lydia in Egypt.
Babylon, Lydia, in Egypt.
Lydia was conquered.
In about 546 BC.
Babylon was conquered, as we said earlier, in 539 BC.
And then Egypt was conquered. by the Medo-Persian Empire in about 525 BC.
So all of this occurred that we're reading about.
About 500 years before Christ came.
That's not very long.
Our nation has been around for 250 years.
They still call us a young nation.
So only about twice the distance in time that America's been around Is the amount of time that it took between the time that the second beast conquered and the time the Christ came.
I'm trying to put this in perspective for you because this timeline is counting down to Jesus.
We're going to see in the book of Babylon.
That Daniel's prophecies count down to Jesus two ways.
It counts down to Jesus' first coming.
It counts down to Jesus' second coming.
It's an amazing book, but the book of Daniel, his prophecies, counts down to when Christ comes to be crucified.
Into when Christ comes to be crowned, both of them.
As we're watching these take place, and the reason we're spending time on this in sharing the history.
Of the battles of these world empires is because Daniel prophesying 16 years before they were conquered and says prophetically who's going to conquer.
And as that came true 16 years later, there's going to be a third beast rise.
And just as Daniel prophesied then, that third beast is going to rise and it's going to come.
Daniel's going to be already in heaven by the time this gets played out, right?
Because time marches on, and Daniel will have to pass away and go be with the Lord.
But eventually all these beasts will rise until it finally gets down to the end of the image where it finally gets down to the last beast and eventually that last beast has to fall too.
And the final world empire will finally come to pass.
And guess who the king of that empire is?
It won't be Cyrus the Great.
It's not going to be Caesar.
It's going to be Jesus the Great, right?
It's going to be King Jesus.
And that's going to be a wonderful time.
The whole point is: if Daniel's prophecies about these beastly kingdoms rising up from the earth came true, then his prophecies about the Savior's kingdom coming down.
From heaven is also going to come to pass.
That's why we're spending the time on it.
If he looks in the future and says, this is what's going to happen, and then it happens, and then it happens, and then it happens, and it plays out happening in the world history.
Before everybody's eyes, and you can bet on it: if the beast rises up from the earth, the lamb's going to come down from heaven.
It's going to happen just like Daniel said, and he will be crowned king forever and ever.
That's what the book of the Revelation is all about.
If you learn it here in Daniel, it's going to make sense at the end of the Bible.
If you learn it at the beginning, it's going to make sense at the end.
And God willing, we will look at the next beast.
Rising from the sea next Sunday morning.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
We thank you for the specificity.
That the prophecies give us, the history that confirms it, the prophecy That comforts us and lets us know, Father, what has happened in the past assures us of what will happen in the future.
And so we don't look forward, Father, wringing our hands and wondering what's going to happen.
We look forward, Father, knowing what's going to happen and waiting, Father, on Jesus to come.
In His precious name we pray.
Amen.
