Ram, Goat, and Empires: Unpacking the Symbols in Daniel

SPEAKER 01 : 0:00

Greetings to the brightest audience in the country, and welcome to Bob and Yart Live. Today, we’re getting into a study of the Book of Daniel done by my father and predecessor, Bob and Yart. And if you want, you do not want to miss this. If you want to get all of Bob and Yart’s Bible studies for just $10, you can get that at nyart.shop that has all of these Daniel studies. You do not want to miss those. But today, we’re getting into this study of Daniel, So exciting. Hey, if you can’t afford that $10, email us, service at kgov.com, and we will find a way to get you those Bible studies. Hey, this is Daniel, Bob Enyart’s study of Daniel. So exciting. I’ll see you on the other end.

SPEAKER 02 : 0:43

We’re up to Daniel chapter 8. Daniel 8, in the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar. And right there, I’d like to pause so that we could take a moment to remember who Belshazzar is. He is a king of Babylon. The most famous Nebuchadnezzar is the Nebuchadnezzar that’s recorded in the Bible by Daniel. And he is, to historians, he is Nebuchadnezzar II. Well, that Nebuchadnezzar had a son whose name is Belshazzar, and that name means that their god will protect the king. The name of the god of the Babylonians, they had an official state god of the city of Babylon, and eventually it became the official god of their empire, and he had two names, same god, but with two names. His name was Bel, B-E-L, no relation, whatsoever, B-E-L, and he was also called Murdoch. So I’d like to tell you a little bit about this god Bel. He was also known as the god of fate, and he won a battle with a primeval god of chaos, and that is very similar to the Greek creation myth of that we read about in Plato where there was chaos and the name for chaos was some ancient primeval Greek god And then chaos was overcome when the creation was started and there was the earth with eight spheres around it and the planets all circling around the earth just as they thought the sun went around the earth. But what was it that moved everything? What moved everything? Plato said it was the fates. The fates were some of the gods, the pantheon of gods. Zeus had three daughters called the fates, and that name for them, the fates, it’s very similar to how we would use it. Fate is when the future is predetermined, it’s settled, it can’t be changed. No matter what you do, it’s fate that’s going to happen. Well, Plato said that the fates moved everything. Everything was in motion by the fates. Well, it wasn’t long until St. Augustine borrowed that and imported it into Christian theology, and everybody believes that. Well, it turns out that the Babylonian god, Murdoch, was their god of fate, their god of destiny. So we often speak of ancient… Greek, pagan religion, and pagan philosophy, but this is also true going back to the Babylonians, this worship of fate. By the way, this god Murdoch reminds me also of a scandal-ravaged Rupert Murdoch right now. No relationship either, as far as I know. He’s a media mogul, and it’s interesting that media, of course, media, M-E-D-I-A, is one of the empires that, along with the Persians, overtook the Babylonians. So you had the Babylonians, and then Medo-Persia, And then you had the Greek Empire, then the Roman Empire. And we’ve been going through the prophecies in Daniel where that progression of empires was prophesied of. And we’re about to get into another iteration. Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, Daniel had a vision, now Daniel has a second vision of a ram and a goat by a river in Babylon. Actually, he’s in the capital city of Susa at the citadel, and there’s a river there, and he has this vision of a goat, and we find out in the chapter that the goat represents Greece, and the ram with its two horns represents the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians. So the text will tell us that, so we don’t have to go out on a limb when we’re interpreting that part of Daniel’s vision. But then there is a detail that’s included that there are Christians who’ve studied this, historians, archaeologists, and they’ve said, you know, this looks like Antiochus Epiphanes. And so when we get to that part of the chapter, we’ll talk about that. By the way, I mentioned this god Bel and his name Murdoch. Well, I’ll quote to you from Jeremiah chapter 50, the word that the Lord spoke against Babylon and against the land of the Chaldeans by Jeremiah the prophet, declare among the nations, proclaim and set up a standard, proclaim, do not conceal it, say Babylon is taken and Bel is shamed. Merodach is broken in pieces. Her idols are humiliated. So Merodach is the Hebrew pronunciation for Marduk. That is, this pagan god, Marduk, will not be able to protect Babylon. That’s what God was saying through Jeremiah. Now, something else before we continue with verse 1. I know we’re only halfway through verse 1, and I’m already on a tangent. But before we continue, the Catholic Old Testament has books and portions of books that we do not have in our Protestant Bibles. There’s a reason for that, and they should not have that, what we call the Apocrypha, the Deuterocanonical books, they should not have those in their Bibles. Why not? Those books were never considered Scripture by the Jews. In the book of Romans, chapter 3, verse 1 and 2, Paul states clearly something we should be able to tell by reading the Bible, that the Hebrew Scriptures, those oracles of God, came to us, they were entrusted to, they were committed to the Jews. So the world got the Hebrew Scriptures from the nation of Israel. Well, the nation of Israel, like any nation, has all kinds of history and it has its own folklore. And its secular history and folklore does not have the imprint of the Holy Spirit. It’s not inspired by God. So it could contain errors. It could contain wicked teachings. It could contain fanciful stories. So the Apocrypha that the Roman Catholic Church considers to be part of the Bible is That was never considered scripture by the Jews. That was part of their history and their folklore that about 200 BC was translated into Greek from their Hebrew language into Greek by a lot of rabbis who were basically requested by the library in Alexandria in Egypt to translate the Bible into Greek. So they did. And they got done in a hurry. History tells us they did it very quickly. Okay, so then they also translated the Jewish history and folklore into Greek. They translated that also for the library in Alexandria. Well, the Roman Catholic Church comes along as have other groups and individuals, and they said, well, that writing should also be part of the Bible. No, that writing is not part of the Bible. All the books of the Apocrypha, while the New Testament quotes extensively from almost the entire Hebrew canon, the 39 books of the Old Testament, it does not quote extensively from the Apocrypha. It’s almost unquoted. There are allusions because Those stories are part of Israel’s culture and history. But the Apocrypha is not recognized as an authoritative source by Jesus or the apostles as are the books of Moses and Isaiah and the other Hebrew prophets. So, three of the Deuterocanonical texts… appear in the book of Daniel. The Roman Catholic Church, their book of Daniel is longer than our book. It has a section on the story of Susanna, which is an account of a woman who was wrongly, falsely accused of being an adulteress, and Daniel rescues her. Nice story. Probably not true. There is another account called The Song of the Three Young Men, and it’s about what happened in the fiery furnace to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Now that’d be really interesting, but is it true? No, it’s not true. It’s part of Israel’s folklore. We could understand how stories like that would arise. People would say, well, what did they talk about while they were in the fiery furnace? And pretty soon you have a whole narrative circulating. And then the final story is Belle and the Dragon. And Belle and the Dragon. Belle is this Marduk. Or Murdoch. Marduk. And… It’s about how Daniel tricked some pagan priest and then killed a dragon without a sword or a club. That’s the story. Is it true? I do not believe it’s true. It’s Jewish folklore, just like we have American folklore, Johnny Appleseed and George Washington, uh, could not tell a lie and chopped down the cherry tree and all. We have folklore. It doesn’t mean that it’s true. And so the Catholics sadly show again that they don’t have a very high regard for the scripture by letting this extraneous material into their Bible. So now Belshazzar, may the God protect the king, Let’s continue. Daniel 8, verse 1. In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me, to me, Daniel, after the one that appeared to me the first time. So the first vision shook up Daniel a bit, and this one will also. Daniel is writing this book. This is in the first person, basically. Even if he reverts to the second or third person as a literary style, Daniel is the author of the book of Daniel. A vision appeared to me, to me, Daniel. I saw in the vision, and it so happened while I was looking, that I was in Shushan, the citadel, which is in the province of Elam. If you look at the Middle East today, the Mesopotamian Valley, the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and go down toward the Persian Gulf, just a little bit east of those rivers. That’s where this citadel was. And there are rivers there today. Rivers are notorious for changing their course because of erosion. And so it’s reasonably believed that there is a stream there today, Ulias, which is this river Uli. Verse 3, Then I lifted my eyes and saw, and there standing beside the river was a ram which had two horns. And the two horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. I saw the ram pushing westward, northward, and southward so that no animal could withstand him, nor was there any that could deliver from his hand, but he did according to his will and became great. And as I was considering, suddenly a male goat came from the west across the surface of the whole earth. Now as I said in a bit, we’re going to find the interpretation included in the text, thankfully. Because when you interpret prophecy, you obviously are putting your own opinion into the text. That’s what interpretation is. And so you go out on a limb. Well, it’s wonderful when Jesus says, this is the meaning of the parable. That’s really encouraging. In Jeremiah 18, the parable of the potter and the clay, here’s what it means. And typically when that happens, many people don’t believe what it says. Right. Jeremiah saw the potter in the clay and God said, you’re the clay. I’m the potter. And if I say I’m going to destroy you and you repent, I will not do that which I prophesied. I will not do that which I thought I would do. And people don’t believe that interpretation of that prophecy. They think the potter in the clay means, however, God decides he’s going to make you. That’s it. There’s no hope for change. So let’s continue. We’re in verse five. A male goat came from the West and we’ll see that that’s Greece. And of course, Greece is to the West across the surface of the whole earth. In fact, Greece is what’s considered to be part of Western civilization. And it’s so fascinating that when you look at the history of the world, And today, our culture and languages throughout the world, you can’t avoid the reality that Europe is the West and Asia… China, Japan, they are the east, and right around Israel is the center. It’s the Middle East, we call it, because it’s not the Far East. And so you look at the names of countries, and Greece, there is no name Greece. There’s no word Greece in Greece. Greece is Helios, which means the sun, because the sun is overhead. But in Japan… Japan is the east. The name Japan means the rising sun. Japan means the east where the sun rises. That’s what the name Japan means. And so Greece, as we hear in this verse, Greece is a force, an empire that came from the west. And so then also the Roman Empire finally supplanted the Greek Empire, and the Roman Empire as part of Western civilization, and then Europe proper, and then America, North America especially. So that’s all the West. So the history of the world and the geography of the world from the perspective of those who study the world is all centered on Israel. And it’s just another example of where the Bible helps to explain everything that is necessary to understand to know where we’ve come from and where we are headed. So a male goat came from the west across the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground. Like it flew with a violent vengeance. It moved so quickly. Like Alexander the Great. and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. Now, we’re going to thankfully get to soon where we find out that the ram is the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians, and the goat is the kingdom of Greece. So verse 6, Then he came to the ram, that is the goat came to the ram, that had two horns, the Medes and the Persians, which I had seen standing beside the river and ran at him with furious power. And last week we talked about Alexander the Great and the extreme speed with which he conquered the known world. And he was so young and he was, the story goes, that he was grieving because there were no lands left to conquer. And then he died so suddenly, it’s shocking because he was so young in his kingdom, which he didn’t really have time to consolidate. He conquered it all, but he didn’t have time to consolidate it and to govern it. And so it very quickly crumbled. It broke into four pieces. We talked about that last week. We’ll mention that again this week. And so in verse 7, I saw him confronting the ram. So Greece and Alexander the Great confronted Medo-Persia. He was moved with rage against him, against the ram, attacked the ram, and broke his two horns. There was no power in the ram to withstand him, but he cast him down to the ground and trampled him, and there was no one that could deliver the ram from his hand. Therefore the male goat grew very great. But when he became strong, the large horn was broken, and in place of it, four notable ones came up toward the four winds of heaven. Now, I am an open theist, and over the last few weeks, we’ve gone through and we’ve asked the question, well, how does an open theist understand these prophecies? And we’ve talked about, and I gave examples of not God, not his prophets, but mere men making extraordinary predictions, even predictions of political events going out 100 years, and the political alliance of the world and where the power base would be a hundred years hence. And human beings who are insightful have been able to do this with uncanny accuracy. So there are two things going on when God makes prophecies of empires replacing one another. One is God is omnicompetent. He is all competent. So he looks at the world and he sees far more than we do with far greater insight. And so he could see that Babylon is going to collapse and it will be replaced by the Medes and the Persians. And they’re going to have a heyday for a while, but what’s happening in Greece and Macedonia and Achaia and their city-states and the force of their own belief system, that eventually will overcome the Medes and the Persians. But what’s happening in Italy and where the Romans are laying a foundation for an empire, that will probably be, and as we move west, geographically, Culturally, intellectually, that will probably be the greatest and the strongest of these empires. So God can see that without having to intervene and micromanage every decision, every leader, every battle. But when God wants to, he can intervene. And he did intervene in the Old Testament in ways like, for example, opening the Red Sea and destroying a king’s army that he is not doing today. So that is how an open theist sees these prophecies, but also with a very strong caveat. There are prophecies in the Old Testament, and I won’t repeat them today because we looked at some of them in detail last week. Prophecies that are very specific, that God says, here’s what I’m going to do to these nations. And then a generation later, he says, you know what? I’m not going to do that to those nations. I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to destroy them because Israel, I’m mad at you. And because I’m mad at you, I’m going to leave them where they are. Now, how could that be? How could a prophecy not come to pass? It’s because God is a person. God is free. He has a will. And he says, if I say I’m going to bless you by punishing those nations, if you’re evil, then I won’t bless you, and I may not punish those nations. And we see that in the Bible. So we need to take that into account. when we read and study prophecies of future events so now let’s continue verse 9 and out of one of them came a little horn which grew exceedingly great now out of one of what out of one of the four notable ones so This king that we’re going to talk about in a moment, remember Alexander the Great, he was the one who flew across the globe and he conquered everything there was to conquer in that part of the world. And then he died quickly and his kingdom broke up. And I’ll quote from Wikipedia in a moment just to emphasize how clearly historians see this. His kingdom broke up into four pieces, and out of one of those pieces, a king arose who severely persecuted the Jews, so much so that he is called by many the Old Testament Antichrist. And so it is believed that he is the one that is being referred to here. So let’s continue, and we’ll talk quite a bit about him. And out of one of those four, out of one of them came a little horn, which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east, and toward the glorious land. The glorious land. So a king of Greece arises… He takes over the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians, and he dies. His kingdom is broken into four pieces, and then there is one who arises out of one of those four pieces who exerts a tremendous influence, probably a terrible influence, over Israel, the promised land, the glorious land. Verse 10, And it grew up to the host of heaven, and it cast down some of the host and some of the stars to the ground and trampled them. Now, do you think that Antiochus Epiphanes, do you think he did that? He went up to heaven and cast down some of the fallen angels? No, of course not. But what we see in the Bible is a pattern where Something that is prophesied or happening in a temporal way is used to also describe something spiritual or eternal. I’ll give you a couple of examples from Ezekiel. Ezekiel is describing the king of Tyre and how evil he is. And then all of a sudden he’s describing Lucifer and how Lucifer fell. And so is he talking about Tyre or Lucifer? He’s talking about both. And he’s using Tyre, something everybody knows about, to show how evil Lucifer is. And then three chapters later, he’s talking about Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And he says, Pharaoh is so evil, he’s like the tree in the Garden of Eden that fell and was destroyed. That’s how evil Pharaoh was. And so the tree in the Garden of Eden, Pharaoh wasn’t in the Garden of Eden, but the Bible is describing both together because they help us understand one another. And so Antiochus Epiphanes, he’s going to be an evil king, but he’s not going to be like lucifer he’s not going to be like the antichrist but he’s like lucifer and he’s like the antichrist if you understand my meaning which is often the meaning of the bible if you get my drift verse 11 he even exalted himself as high as the prince of the host and And by him the daily sacrifices were taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. So the prince of the host is God, Jesus Christ, the prince of peace, and the host of heavens, and the host of Israel. And the daily sacrifice is what God commanded that they do at the temple where they worship God and offer sacrifices to the God of Abraham, Jehovah. Well, it is extraordinary that a king arose from Greece, from one of those four divisions of Alexander’s empire, and he severely persecuted the Jews, carried thousands away into slavery, murdered thousands, and he prohibited them from from sacrificing to the God of Israel in the temple. He did that. So that is why so many Christian theologians and Bible students say, hey, we know who this guy is, because there he is in history. So verse 12 says, Because of transgression, an army was given over to the horn to oppose the daily sacrifices. And he cast truth down to the ground. He did all this and prospered. So because of transgression, I think that means because of Israel’s sin. God expects that Israel will…

SPEAKER 01 : 28:09

Stop the tape. Stop the tape. Hey, we are out of time here on KLTT Radio. If you want the entire thing, you can find it in two different ways. One, you can go to kgov.com, click on the store, and purchase the Daniel Bible Study, which is a little bit expensive. I’ll be honest. It’s a little bit expensive. Or for way cheaper, you can go to nyart.shop and get all of Bob Enyart’s Bible Studies for just $10. You do not want to miss that. $10. What a steal. If that’s too expensive for you, reach out service at kgov.com and we will find a way to get that to you. No charge. We want to be a blessing to you. Again, nyart.shop. That’s E-N-Y-A-R-T dot S-H-O-P. Hey, may God bless you guys.