The Four Kingdoms: Understanding Daniel’s Vision

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 : 0:42

We’re up to Daniel chapter 7, and we have a flashback prior to the events of the last two chapters. in which God gives Daniel a vision similar in interpretation to Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. Remember that dream he had back in chapter 2 of the four successive empires? Well, this dream that God gives to Daniel is very similar to that, only Daniel’s dream is more otherworldly and more detailed, as we will see. Now, events are not always reported in chronological order, and that’s true of books written today, of newspaper articles, of history books. You could buy a history book on World War II, and you’re sure to read on the first few pages things that happened at the end of the war. And then the author will back up and continue his story. So that happens commonly. In fact, in the Bible… I think of the book of Job that’s located near the center of the Bible next to the Psalms. And if we put it chronologically, we’d put it at the end of the book of Genesis, maybe at the beginning of Exodus. Job was written before Genesis was written. It’s of the time of Jacob’s grandchildren. That’s when it occurred. But it appears in the canon of the Bible where it seems like it fits best in the story because the story doesn’t always have to be chronological. If you remember the account of Ezra and the rebuilding of the temple and Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem, even though in the Hebrew scroll that has those books, Ezra comes first and then Nehemiah, it seems logically and biblically that they would have built the wall first and then the temple. Because how could you build such a precious, expensive, difficult building and have no wall to protect the city from Israel’s many enemies? That doesn’t make sense. And then also the prophet Haggai in chapter 1 of his short book says, he reports that God is saying, why is it that you people have your luxurious houses? You all live in beautiful houses with wood paneling even inside, and my house is lying in ruins. Shouldn’t you rebuild the temple? So how could it be that the Jews would be living in luxurious houses without the wall of the city built? So almost certainly, the story of Nehemiah comes first chronologically. They build the wall of Jerusalem, and then inside the city they build the temple, even though those stories come in a different order in the canon and in the Hebrew scroll that records them. So here we are in Daniel, and this flashback, if you will, is far more obvious. So we’re going back to the time of Belshazzar, a king who in the story otherwise has now died. But we’re going back to when, verse 1, in the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head while on his bed. Then he wrote down the dream, telling the main facts. Daniel spoke saying, I saw in my vision by night and behold the four winds of heaven, that is the winds of the skies, were stirring up the great sea and four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other. Again, I think this vision parallels Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the image of And in fact, we’re going to get an interpretation of this from an angel, and we’ll see that it does parallel. It’s the same interpretation, just a different presentation. And so this is important to God. Remember Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the image, the head of gold symbolized him, the monarch of Babylon, the king, and then another kingdom, was of the Medes and the Persians, and then the third of bronze representing the Greeks, and finally the fourth, as strong as iron, right down the legs, right down to the toes, representing the Roman Empire. That was Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, and Daniel’s interpretation through the first part of the dream, the head of gold, which was Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom, And then as you continue, it’s our interpretation along with thousands of other scholars, Bible teachers, theologians, historians, archaeologists, and so on who believe God’s word. So now to Daniel’s dream of four empires. Verse 4. The first was like a lion. and this will be Babylon, and had eagle’s wings. I watched till its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a man’s heart was given to it. Remember with Nebuchadnezzar, and he was like an animal in the field. But then he came back, and he humbled himself before the living God, and he became like a man again. And suddenly another beast, a second like a bear. It was raised up on one side and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. And they said thus to it, Arise, devour much flesh. Now, this second kingdom, we said back in chapter 2, is… the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians, or Medo-Persia. And that is the kingdom that, in fact, replaced Babylon. And Medo-Persia, when Bible interpreters read this, that it’s like a bear with three ribs in its mouth, They think, wow, imagine devouring a victim and you’ve got three ribs in your mouth. And so they say, what might that be? And it turns out that the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians, or Medo-Persia, They had three victims, three other empires, Lydia, Babylon, and Egypt. And Lydia is the least familiar of those three. So I’ll mention Lydia. The Medes and the Persians, the Persian king Cyrus the Great defeated the Lydians. Now, the Lydians were in what we call Turkey today, Anatolia. Their capital city was Sardis. Sardis is one of the cities that Jesus wrote to in the book of Revelation. Remember he wrote to seven cities, Sardis and Smyrna and others? Well, those cities are in this area where Lydia was an empire that the Persians, they not only defeated the king, but they captured the capital city of Sardis. And so here we have the Medes and the Persians represented as a bear with three ribs in its mouth that historically could certainly be that kingdom that followed Babylon and that consumed then the kingdom of Babylon and Egypt and Lydia. So let’s continue, verse 6. After this I looked, and there was another like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird. The beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it. Now, this could certainly be Greece. That’s what we said in chapter 2, that the kingdom that came after the Medes and the Persians, was the kingdom of Alexander the Great, who conquered much of the known world. And he was so young, and he died unexpectedly, very young. And he was sad because there was nothing left to conquer. He was such an extraordinary military general. And If you think about Greece and you compare it to this verse right here, now, first it was Babylon, then there was Medo-Persia, which conquered Lydia and Babylon and Egypt. Then there was Greece and Alexander the Great, and after his sudden death, his dominion was divided into four pieces. And that’s interesting because this verse speaks of the third kingdom, which is a beast. But the beast had four heads and dominion was given to it. And I’d like to read to you a sentence from Wikipedia. And this is from their article on the Greek Empire and Alexander the Great. And upon his death, there’s a section in this Wikipedia article called Division of the Empire. And so this is what it says. The Greek world settled into four stable power blocks. the Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt, the Seleucid Empire in the east, the kingdom of Pergamum in Asia Minor, and Macedon, northern Greece. By the way, in the process, Alexander IV and Philip III were murdered. So here we have Daniel’s dream, that’s paralleling Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, Daniel’s vision, and the four empires listed, and we see things that are reminiscent of those four empires. After Greece comes Rome, the Iron Empire. Verse 7. Of course, this reminds us of the Roman Empire. It had huge iron teeth. It was devouring, breaking in pieces and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it and it had ten horns. I was considering the horns, and there was another horn, a little one, coming up among them, before whom three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots. And there in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking pompous words.” Now, when we were in chapter 2, I mentioned that Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon, and a monarchy is the purest form of government, where there’s one man, and he’s the king. He’s in charge. Then from there, you dilute the form of government into maybe you have an oligarchy or an aristocracy you have a group of men who lead eventually you get to a democracy where everybody supposedly rules which is one step away from anarchy where nobody rules and so what’s interesting is this fourth beast of iron If this does represent the Roman Empire, which I believe it does, there is this little one that comes up that causes all kinds of turmoil, even for the Roman Empire. And I think that little horn is supposed to represent the Antichrist. I think so. You compare the book of Daniel with the book of Revelation. And when we see that these three kings were plucked out by this little one, the three kings there are reminiscent possibly of the Roman triumvirate. the triumvirate where three men led the empire. So you go from the kingdom of pure power invested in an individual like Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and eventually you get to the Roman Empire where you have the people have a certain amount of authority. There’s the Roman Senate, and usually there’s a Caesar, an emperor. Well, At the time of Octavian, if you remember any of these names, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Mark Antony, these three ruled together as a triumvirate. And they were given power to make laws. to annul laws. They did not need approval from the people. They didn’t need approval from the Senate. They could just do it in their committee of three. Their judicial decisions could not be appealed. They named magistrates at will. Now, Marcus Lepidus, he was quickly set aside, and then there was a civil war Between Octavian and Mark Antony. Remember that with Cleopatra. And Mark Antony… was dead. And so Octavian was left as the sole leader, and he’s known to us also as Augustus Caesar. He is Augustus Caesar who gave the order that Luke recorded in his gospel for the census to be taken when Jesus, his mother Mary with Joseph, went to Bethlehem and he was born there during the time of the census. So these three kings, could that be what God had in mind when he gave Daniel this vision? Augustus Caesar, by the way, was succeeded by Tiberius Caesar, and he led Rome at the time of Christ’s crucifixion and for about seven or eight years thereafter. Tiberius was a stepson of Caesar Augustus, and he married Augustus’ daughter, thereby assuring his rise to the throne. Now, some Christians look at this, and they want to interpret it, and they want to understand, like we would like to understand, what does this mean? Exactly what does it mean? And how does it fit or not fit with history? Many Christians believe that prophecy is pre-written history. That is not true. There is some prophecy that’s pre-written history, but prophecy generally is not pre-written history. Much prophecy, prophecy is the foretelling of the Word of God. Much of it is given, even prophecy of the future is given in hopes that it will fail. It’s prophecy of warning and God gives it so that people will repent and these things will not happen. Other prophecies fail. They do not come to pass for other reasons. And God brags about this in Jeremiah chapter 18, for example, with the potter and the clay. He brags about his willingness to not bring to pass. He said he will not bring to pass the blessings or the punishments that he pronounced on nations under certain circumstances. He says, so if I say this about a nation, this is going to happen, I’m going to do that. Depending on the circumstances, I may not do it. I’m not saying that these kings that I’ve just mentioned were the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy, but I’m saying that they easily could have been. Now, as it turns out, Tiberius was the great-great-uncle of Nero, and we generally recall that Nero severely persecuted Christians. That little horn, I believe, was to be the Antichrist. But why is it that we don’t see the latter stages of this prophecy working out as nicely as the first time? say, 90% of the prophecy? Why does the last 10% not seem to fit with history as perfectly? Well, I think that is because Jesus held out hope for Israel’s repentance and faith, but he came down to earth and he saw firsthand how deep was their rebellion against God. He wanted to give them a kingdom. That’s what all this dream and Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and this vision is leading to, God giving his people a kingdom. And Jesus is the king, but they hate the king. And so how could he give them the kingdom? And in the Gospels, they record Jesus saying, hey, Israel, I may cut you off. I may cut you off because of your unbelief. I want to give you a kingdom, but how can I if you hate me? Eventually, Jesus, as he lived his life of 33 years on earth, he saw firsthand in the flesh their hatred of him as the world hated him. And so for God to continue to intervene in the affairs of men in order to give Israel their kingdom on time, as prophesied on schedule, was to God undoubtedly becoming a goal that was not worthy of his attention. How am I going to do this, God asks, could be thinking, and continue to intervene in a way to give Israel a kingdom that will fill the world when they hate me and they hate the king, they hate the Messiah. It’s not going to work. That’s what is becoming obvious as you read through the Old Testament and into the Gospels. This happened in the time of Joshua, if you recall. Remember that God said in Deuteronomy and in the book of Joshua that he promised that without fail he would drive out the Canaanites and six other nations who lived in the promised land? He promised he’d cast them out, but then he didn’t do it. Why not? Well, Israel refused to honor him. And God pointed that out a generation later in the beginning of the book of Judges. He said, look, I said this would happen with these nations, but it’s not going to happen because I’m not going to do it. Remember with Moses, God called Moses from birth, and he worked with Moses for 80 years, preparing him to deliver the nation. And just before Moses began his work of deliverance, we read in Exodus chapter 4 that God wanted to kill him. And God almost killed Moses because he was so angry at Moses for Moses’ blatant disobedience. So how could it be God is working for 80 years and then he’s willing to set all that aside because of some minor issue like disobedience? Yes, that’s what God is like. Remember in Jonah 3.10 that God repented from the destruction that he said he would bring upon Nineveh, and he did not do it. Jonah 3.10. Well, I’d like to quote to you what God said about these seven nations and that prophecy in the land of Canaan. And… After I quote to you what the Lord said he’s going to do, I’ll give you an interpretation later. Here we are 3,500 years later. And if you make this interpretation, some people say you’re a heretic for this interpretation. Okay? So here’s from Deuteronomy chapter 7. When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. That’s a very explicit prophecy, isn’t it? That’s more explicit than Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and Daniel’s vision. This is naming them and saying when it’s going to happen and what the explicit outcome will be without all the symbolism. Deuteronomy 7, verse 23. The Lord your God will deliver them over to you and will inflict defeat upon them until they are destroyed. This is repeated in the book of Joshua. Remember we said Jonah 3.10? God did not do it. Well, Joshua 3.10, Joshua said, What if you interpreted from history, we know somewhat of the history of the world, and you include biblical history, and you come to this interpretation. You say, you know what? That didn’t happen. All the driving out of those nations and Israel conquering those nations and utterly defeating them, it never happened. What if you came to that interpretation? Well, you would be called a heretic, certainly by Calvinists, probably by Arminians. But truth is an absolute defense against the charge of slander. You’ve heard that, right? If you’re charged with slander and it turns out what you said about this no good guy is true, well, that’s an absolute defense. You can’t be convicted of slander if what you said is true, not justly. And truth is an absolute defense against the charge of heresy. So we fast forward one generation from the time of Joshua to the book of Judges, chapter 2, verse 1. And we find out that that prophecy failed and God said he’s not going to do it. Judges 2, then the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochum and said, I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you. And you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall tear down their altars. But you have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? God is asking. Calvinism is so perverse. They think that God decreed that they wouldn’t obey. And then God decrees that they would disobey. And then he says, why have you done this? When he compelled them to disobey. It’s utter foolishness. But God, the true God, the living God, says, You have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? Therefore, I also said, I will not drive out the nations before you, but they shall be thorns in your side, and their gods shall be a snare to you. In verse 5, Thus the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. And they took their daughters to be their wives and gave their daughters to their sons and they served their gods. So what a tragedy. And is it then heresy to say that prophecy did not come to pass exactly as it was given? That’s not heresy. Truth is an absolute defense against the charge of heresy. So the fact that Daniel’s prophecies were on schedule and valid through the centuries into the fourth empire until the time of Christ… That’s extraordinary in and of itself. But then they never finally completed, it seems, when you study the Bible and you look at ancient history, the tail end of those prophecies don’t seem to have come to pass. In fact, we know it because God said that after the fourth, he would establish his kingdom on earth and it would fill the earth. And that hasn’t happened. The body of Christ is on the earth.

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 enyart.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.