We really have our work cut out for us tonight. For Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 are probably the most difficult parts of the book of Daniel. Chapter 7 and Chapter 8, a part of which we will try to finish tonight, are very, very complex and very, very involved. And so we'll have to stay with it every minute. If we slip a second, we'll lose our track. And we don't want to do that in a study of prophecy. You'll remember that in our last session, at the end of Chapter 6, we were discussing Daniel in the lion's den. And now when we come to Chapter 7, we are back under the reign of Belshazzar again, who was the last king of the Babylonian Empire. In Chapter 6, We have been dealing with matters in the Medo-Persian kingdom, which conquered the Babylonian kingdom in 539. Now, that means that in the book of Daniel, as is the case with so many writings in the Old Testament, what you have is not a chronological order of events. Daniel does not always give things in the order in which they happen, and we have that in chapter 7, because in chapter 7, he moves back to the events or the time span which he had been talking about prior to Chapter 5. Chapter 7, if it were in chronological order, would follow Chapter 4, because we're dealing with Belshazzar and Babylon, and not with Darius or Cyrus and the Persian Empire. Now, I think you'll catch on to this as we move along tonight, but this is not an unusual method in the Old Testament. In fact, in the book of Genesis, in chapters 1 and 2, the very opening chapters of the book of Genesis, we find this very method used, where we are given the story of creation, and then in the following chapter, the writer of Genesis, whom we assume to be Moses, backtracks and fills in the details of the story that he's just told us before. And so that's not an unusual method. What's happening here is Daniel is backtracking, so to speak, and he's filling in some information which has to do with the events which transpired during his time in Babylon while the Babylonians were in control of the world empire. Which brings us to chapter 7. 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 he told the psalm of the parts, or the sum of the matter, which seems to me that Daniel is saying, I've had so many visions and so many dreams, and he must have had many by this time. I've had so many of them that they run round wild in my head, and I'm trying to sum it all up and add it all together and make sense out of all of these visions and dreams which God has given to me. Now, Daniel spoke and said, I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of the heavens strove upon the great sea. This could mean two things. It could mean the winds of the North, South, East, and West striving, as it were, upon the turbulent Mediterranean Sea, which was the sea around which all of these events more or less transpired. Or it could be that what he's talking about here is the nations, tribes, tongues, and dialects of men. Because in the Old Testament, When the sea is referred to in prophetic or metaphorical terms, it always is referring to the nations, peoples, tribes, and tongues. It is not talking about a watery sea. It is usually talking about the nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues. In Revelation, the same thing is true when the sea is spoken of. And here we will see beasts rising up out of the sea. which doesn't mean that these beasts who are kings of the Gentile kingdoms of the world literally come out of the waters of the ocean, but it means they rise up out of the nations and tongues and peoples and tribes and dialects of the world. So, sea is a prophetic term for the earth, or for the nations of the world. And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from the other. Four great beasts, each of them different from the other. They do not rule together simultaneously. Some will say they do, but I do not believe that's borne out in the teaching of Daniel or the scriptures. But they run one after the other. We've already seen who these four kings or kingdoms are. They are Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Already in the book of Daniel, we have had Daniel picturing for us or portraying for us something of the nature of these four kingdoms which will rule from his day until the end of the world and what happens to these four kingdoms. Now in chapter 7 and chapter 8 he goes into specifics about two of these kingdoms and we'll see that a little later on in our study tonight. The first looked like a lion and had eagle's wings. I'm sure that you have noted that even today Most nations of the world have a symbol for themselves, usually in the form of either a fowl or a beast. Please note that all of these ancient empires were symbolized by beast or fowl, all of which were beast or fowl of prey. They preyed upon others. Now, when you come to the kingdom of God, which is the only kingdom that is different from the kingdoms which we've been looking at here, you find a totally different portrayal of that kingdom. It too is portrayed as a beast or an animal, but it is not portrayed as a beast of prey or a fowl of prey, it is portrayed as the gentleness of a lamb. For the king of that kingdom is Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, not the lion, not the eagle, not the leopard, not the bear, but the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Which shows you immediately that there is a vast difference between the character and of Babylon, and Persia, and Greece, and Rome, and the kingdom of God, which one day will supplant all of these kingdoms of the Gentile world. The first was like a lion, and he had eagle's wings, and I beheld that its wings were plucked." Now, the first one, like a lion, carries us back further into the book of Daniel, where already we've seen the great image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, or in his vision. And you'll remember that the head was a head of gold. And Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, the head, the head of gold, is you, Nebuchadnezzar, and is your kingdom. And please also note that when the Old Testament in prophetic language talks about kings or kingdoms, it uses these terms interchangeably, because the king and the kingdom were essentially the same thing. The Caesar of the Roman Empire was the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was the Caesar. So when you talked about Nero, you were talking about Rome. When you talked about Rome, you were talking about Nero, or Caesar Augustus, or Julius Caesar, or whoever it might be who was the reigning supreme king of the empire at that time. The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings, and I beheld till its 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. This is a bit difficult to explain. I have just prefaced the remarks which I am about to make with the statement that the king and the kingdom were used synonymously, and that helps us to understand this verse. Because it speaks here of a kingdom, and then it speaks of that kingdom as if it were a man. And it says that the man has been plucked up, or the kingdom has been plucked up, and calls to stand upon its feet, and a man's heart is given to it. It seems to me that the reference here is to Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Empire. we have already discovered that Nebuchadnezzar, because of his pride and his arrogance, was driven from his throne by God into the fields to eat grass with the beast. And there his hair grew like the feathers of birds and his flesh became corrupted and he was ill and he was in the midst of dementia in the fields until God delivered him and brought him back to the throne and replaced him in his position as the king or the emperor of Babylon. So it seems to me that that's what this verse is referring to, though we cannot be exactly certain about that. And if it is true, if it is true that kings and kingdoms are synonymous in the Old Testament, then that throws a great deal of light upon the statement which is just made here. The second empire is Medo-Persia. Behold, another beast, a second like a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between its teeth, and they said thus unto it, Arise, and devour much flesh." Now, this is Medo-Persia, which is represented as a bear, which has to do with the tenacity of a bear. Incidentally, I was mentioning a moment ago the fact that these ancient empires or kingdoms were represented by beast or fowl prey, it is true that the nations of the world still today are represented by heraldic symbols in the forms usually of a bird or of an animal. In America, the United States is represented as an eagle. That's our bird. That represents us. You see the eagle? That's the United States. In England, it's a lion. In China, it's a dragon. So all the nations of the world still today have these heraldic symbols as they did in ancient times. This is a bear, this is Tenacity, this is Medo-Persia. And it raised itself upon one side, and remember that Medo-Persia was actually a duplistic kingdom. It first of all was the kingdom of the Medes and the kingdom of the Persians, and then the Persians gradually overcame and absorbed the Medes, and the Persians took over and just became the Persian Empire, because the Persian Empire was stronger than the Media Empire, the Medes, which it conquered, eventually conquered. And so that's the reference here to the bear rising up on one side. It represents Persia. It rises up on one side. One side is stronger than the other side. That's Persia, rather than media. And it has three ribs in its mouth, between its teeth, and they said thus unto it, rise and devour much flesh. Now from the very earliest days of Christianity, these three ribs in the mouth, or in the teeth, of this bear, which is Medo-Persia, or Persia, stronger on one side than the other. These three nations, or kingdoms, which had been conquered by Medo-Persia were Libya, Babylonia, and Egypt. And if you had a map up here on the board tonight, you could see very easily how they flow one into the other, because you first of all have Egypt, and you have Libya, which is the western part of Asia Minor, And then you have Babylonia, which was down to the south. So this is, I think, important to keep in mind, though it's not vastly important. After this, I beheld another like a leopard, which had upon its back four wings of a fowl. The beast had also four heads, and dominion was given to it. This is a reference to the kingdom, or the empire, of the Greeks. Now, the first great king, Philip of Macedon, was king of the Greek Empire when it just began, before it became as great and mighty as it was to become. But the first great king, rightly called the first king of the Greek Empire, was, of course, Alexander the Great. And this is a reference here to him, who represented that kingdom as a leopard, which has to do with the swiftness with which this kingdom conquered the world. And if you go back into secular history, you'll discover that there has never been a world empire which is mighty enough and swift enough to conquer the world in three years as did Alexander the Great. Because actually, in a period of three years, he had just about overrun everything. By the time he was 33 years old, he died, of course, was on his way to India, never made it, but he had conquered all of the then-known world of his time and his day. So the third kingdom is like a leopard which has upon its back four wings of a fowl, representing Alexander's swiftness. The beast had also four heads, and dominion was given to it. Now, the four heads of the Greek empire represent what happened to the empire when Alexander the Great died at the age of 33 in 323 B.C. When he died, there was a struggle among his generals. rival generals, and his four generals took over the whole empire and divided it up into four different sections. They were the Kingdom of Macedonia, the Kingdom of Asia Minor, the Kingdom of Syria, and the Kingdom of Egypt. These became the four heads which are referred to here in verse 6 of the Greek Empire after Alexander the Great's death. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly, and it had great iron teeth. It devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet. And it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns." Now, this one is, of course, the Roman Empire, the last empire that will rule the empire that ruled until 476 in the west and later in the east, but was divided, of course, in the west and thus was crippled as an empire. And in the end times, both John in Revelation and Daniel here in this book tells us that the Roman Empire will be in power again. and that in the end times the Roman Empire will be an empire comprised initially of ten nations, which represent the ten toes on the Colossus which we saw earlier in Daniel, and here represents the ten horns upon this beach. Ten nations comprising the restored Roman Empire. Later we discover that the Antichrist destroys three of those nations, and only seven are left remaining to form the empire of the Roman Metropolis, or the Roman Empire of the end times. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before which there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roosts. This is the reference which I just made. And, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things." If you turn to the teachings of Jesus in the apocalyptic sections of the Gospels in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you will find Jesus warning us that this very thing is going to happen at the end of the age. There is going to arise a person, a political, religious ruler of the whole world, which will be anti-Christ. He will be everything Christ isn't. He will be opposed to Christ and what Christ stands for in every way. And he will speak great things, and he will do pompous things. And he will deceive the masses, and the masses will fall for his deception. This is the teaching of Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, and the entire book of Revelation, as well as other references in the writings of the New Testament. So he is an arrogant person, and he speaks blasphemy. This is a reference to the Antichrist, which comes out of the Roman Empire. Now, out of the previous three, though they are part of the final Roman Empire, of course, but out of the Roman Empire itself. I beheld till the thrones were placed. Now, the literal rendering here is interesting, because it actually says, I kept on looking, And we get the impression from the way he uses this word that he is very, very intrigued by what he's seeing. If you were having a vision, you would do that too. You know, your eyes would get big and you'd keep on looking to see what's coming next. And he writes here very humanly. He says, I kept on looking until I saw seats established or thrones placed And the Ancient of Days did sit upon the throne. Now, the Ancient of Days is obviously a reference to God, the Creator of the universe, the Redeemer of mankind. The Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and his hair of his head was like pure wool. This color always refers to holiness and purity in the Bible. His throne was like the fiery flame, which always refers to indignation, wrath, and judgment, and his wheels as burning fire. And that takes us back to Ezekiel, because you remember when Ezekiel had his great vision of God, he saw wheels, as it were, turning in the midst of wheels. Remember that? Which has to do with the locomotive aspect of God. God's eyes go to and fro throughout the whole earth. God is everywhere at the same time. He is omnipresent. You cannot hide from God this sort of idea in the scriptures. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him, a thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. And the judgment was set, and the books were opened." Now, does not that sound like Revelation, exactly? Almost a direct quotation of what John sees in his vision. When, as you recall from our study of the book of the Apocalypse, when he sees God seated upon the throne, and Christ at the foot of the throne, and the saints of God around the throne, and the 24 elders representing the nation of Israel and the Church, around the throne, and then scattered out into infinity, as it were, in a mounting kind of crescendo, you see the angelic beings, thousands upon thousands, ten thousands times ten thousands, as John says in Revelation, the same thing which Daniel sees in his vision here. Now, what we have there, as I understand it, what we have here is not is not a copying of Daniel by revelation. It is rather that God has never left himself without witness in the world, and when God reveals the truth unto one prophet, the next prophet is going to get the same kind of truth. It's not going to contradict it. And so when God revealed this to Daniel, much later, hundreds of years later, he revealed it unto John, and it was the same message, essentially, which he had revealed earlier unto Daniel. I beheld him because of the voice of the great words which the horn spoke. and I beheld even till the beast was slain, and its body destroyed, and given to the burning flame." And John, in Revelation, sees the Antichrist at the end of the age, after the seven years of tribulation, he sees him cast into hell where the fire is never quenched and the worm never dies. As for the rest of the beast, that is, the other kingdoms, They had their dominion taken away, and that would have happened, of course, before the Roman Empire came, yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time, which means that the kingdoms are gone, and God has his own schedule and timetable, and that nothing can survive beyond the time which God has set for it. And these kingdoms are gone, and even though the kings were allowed to live for a while, they too now have succumbed to death. They too are gone. I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man." Now this is a theophany again. We see these throughout the Old Testament, an appearance of God unto special, selected, chosen people who deserve that theophany. I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven. The clouds of heaven immediately identify whoever this is as being a divine person. because the clouds of heaven in the Old and New Testament always are the vehicle of a divine person, God essentially, or Jesus Christ, who will come again on the clouds of the air like he went away in his ascension in the clouds of the heavens. Now the one he sees, he says, is like the Son of Man. Notice he says he is like the Son of Man, because the Son of Man has not yet been born in Bethlehem. Daniel does not know the Son of Man, or the Son of God, if you prefer that expression. He is the Son of Man, and he is the Son of God, which means he is not half man and half God, but he is fully man, and he is fully God. He is fully representative of the human race, and he is also God in human flesh, fully man and fully God. Son of Man comes originally from the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel is the one who calls the coming Messiah, the Son of Man, first and uses that expression quite often to refer to him. And for Ezekiel, Son of Man meant mostly that he was a representative of humanity and a descendant from humanity. But he knew that there was something very special about this Son of Man who one day would come to the earth as the Messiah. And gradually, through the prophets, we get this expanded, growing understanding of the deity of the Son of Man, until in the New Testament, though Jesus still refers to Himself usually as the Son of Man, the Son of Man has become not just Son of Man, but He's also Son of God. And that was unfolding in the Old Testament, but slowly. I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, now this is Christ the Messiah, coming to the throne, for the Ancient of Days is seated. And they brought him near before him, and it was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, that which shall not be destroyed." Once again, this is the teaching of the Hebrew nation, it was the teaching of the Hebrew rabbis, even though they did not seem fully to understand all that they were teaching, they believed, and we believe, that the kingdom which God established in Abraham is an everlasting kingdom. We believe that the kingdom which began with Abraham will not end until God says the time for it to end, and we believe that the kingdom of Abraham has been restored to the land of Israel, to the land of Palestine, it will remain there until the end of days, and it will eventually become once again the kind of kingdom, though not spiritually but politically, that it was in the days when the Old Testament closed. So that we have during this interlude of time between the closing of the Old Testament and establishing of the nation in its fullness, which it's not yet in its fullness. In this interlude time, we have the Church ministering in the place of the nation of Israel. But I don't want to get into that theology, because that is very deep, and we've talked about that before. We can't do it here. The Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom. I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body. And the visions of my head trouble me. I like the expression. I was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body. Have you ever had anything that worried you in your mind so much that it affected your body? Well, of course you have. You can worry about something, you can think about something, you can be confused about something to the point that your body literally becomes sick. And Daniel says my body is feeling the effects of these visions and these dreams. My spirit is affecting my body. Later on he talks about being very, very troubled. And that's just not a mental troubling or an emotional troubling, but it's a physical troubling. I came near unto one of them that stood by, and this is in his vision now, and I asked him the truth of all this. So he told me and made me know the interpretation of the things. These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which will arise out of the earth. Now, I've already given you an interpretation of this vision which he had in the opening verses of chapter 7. But here we find confirmation of what I've just said. The scriptures itself say that this is so. These great beasts, which are four, are four kings who shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever. Now the saints of the Most High, though Daniel didn't know who these were, he just thought of saints as being righteous people, the people of God. But the saints of the Most High, we discover in the New Testament, are part of the mystery of God, which Paul writes so in depth about. And the saints of God, who will take the kingdom for all eternity, are the people of the Church, the Bride of Christ. The saints of God will rule with Him. for a thousand years, and then will share that power with God for all eternity. So the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever. Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceedingly dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and its nails of bronze, which devoured broken pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet. and of the ten horns that were in its head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell, even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spoke very great things, whose look was more stout than its fellows. I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them." A reference here to what John elaborately describes in the book of Revelation as the seven years of tribulation. When the Antichrist, the horn referred to here of the Roman Empire, when the Antichrist battles against the Church, against Christ, against everything that is holy and righteous, and seeks in one final overture of maliciousness to overthrow everything that God has planned for his world, his universe. I beheld and the same horn made war with the saints and prevailed against them. Until the Ancient of Days came and judgment was given, I should perhaps stop here and say, some of you may be asking yourself now, if the saints here are a specific reference to the Church, and the Church is raptured during the Tribulation, then how is the Antichrist making war against the saints? That is because, during the Tribulation period, there will be people who will become confessors. There will be those who will accept Christ, who will accept Him as Messiah, and they will become a part of this glorified Church. and they perhaps will be martyred, more than likely will be martyred during the seven years of tribulation, but there will be saints there who will arise during that period. Until the ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High, and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom. Now if you want a reference to read more about this, 1 Corinthians 6 verses 2 through 3 gives you a very very clear, insightful passage about the saints of the Most High and their possession of the kingdom. Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. This, obviously, is a reference to the final undoing of the Gentile kingdoms of the world at the end of the age. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise. and another shall rise after them, and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings." This is the Antichrist. "...who will arise after the ten kings of the restored Roman Empire at the end of the age, probably out of one of those ten kingdoms, and will assume power over all the other ten, and three of them he will cast down. And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change the times and the laws, and they shall be given into his hand until a time, and times, and the dividing of time." And this one verse would require, if we gave it the attention it deserved, it would require the whole time tonight. Because there are so many things that are said in this verse 25. He shall speak great words against the Most High, that's blasphemy, and he will wear out the saints of the Most High, that is the tribulation of the people of God during the tribulation period, and will literally wear them out, and this perhaps is what Jesus has in mind when he says, those days for the sake of the elect will be shortened, because there's just so much you can stand, and God will not put upon us more than we can stand, we are told that. and think to change the times and the laws. Now when I come to this expression of verse 25, it reminds me of what's going on in the world today. Among the kings and potentates and rulers of the world today. This is precisely what is happening in our modern world. It's not the first time it's happened. It runs in cycles. History runs in cycles. History, it is said, repeats itself, and in a sense that's true because it runs in cycles. But it doesn't repeat itself so much as there are high times, high points, and low ebbs in cyclic form throughout the history of the world. And we happen to be at the moment in one of those low ebbs in the cycle of history. One of those low moral ebbs in the cycle of history. There was the Dark Ages, you remember. That was a low ebb. And then there came the revivals of the 19th century. And that was a high point in the cycles of history. And now we're in one of those low points again, where morals and even law doesn't seem to have much significance for the masses of mankind. We do as we please. And the Antichrist, who will come at the end, but who is also typified and represented by Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar and all of these kings, ancient kings and kingdoms, because in a sense they are all Antichrist in a smaller, less important way. And the final Antichrist is yet to come. But we have many Antichrists. They are abroad in the world even now. And I think perhaps the final Antichrist may be being groomed now somewhere in the world for his position. So that could happen at any time that he could take over the reigns and the rule of the world. But the spirit of Antichrist is always in the world, says John in the New Testament. And that means that what was happening in Babylon, what was happening in Greece and Persia and in Rome earlier, all had to do with the spirit of Antichrist. But there is going to be one final totality or summation of all of these Antichrist spirits of the past who will reign and rule. This is why he's called a beast diverse from all the rest. He's so different. He's so powerful that you cannot even begin to describe him, says Dan. Daniel describes Babylon, he describes Persia, he describes Greece, he likens them unto something, but when he comes to Rome he can't liken it unto anything because it is more powerful, more wicked, more malicious, more anti-Christ as we understand it, than anything he's seen. So the anti-Christ, though it's been done before, he will think to change the times and the laws. and they shall be given into his hand until a time, times, and dividing of a time." And John in Revelation talks about this. Time is one year, times is two years, plural, and half a time is six months, or three and a half years, which is the great tribulation, the last half of the seven years of tribulation that John talks so much about in the book of the Apocalypse. So he is describing here the Antichrist, particularly during the last half. of the period of seven years of tribulation. I find it interesting that it says he will change the times and the laws, or he will think to, he will try to. Isn't this what's happening today? Isn't this why we're having such conflict in the world today? Moral conflict, of course there's shooting all around the world, but today we're having moral conflict above everything else. In the field of education, in the field of medicine, certainly in the field of religion, in the military, everywhere it's a problem of morality. And why are we having this problem? It's because we have had leadership in both the political realm and the church. We have had leadership of late who have sought to tell us that black is white and white is black. We have had deception on deception and lie on top of lie until people no longer know what to believe. People are confused about what is right and what is wrong because we've been told, essentially, that there isn't any difference. And do you know why we're told that there isn't any difference? It's all in the interest of world peace and tolerance. You tolerate everybody and everything, and you make the kingdom of God come by the efforts of man, which God says throughout the scriptures we cannot do. And it's because we try to do what God only can do, rather than submitting unto God's authority, that God eventually has to bring this whole thing to an end. And so we have this moral chaos in the world today because we have leaders in the political world and in the church as well, who are trying to change the times and change the laws in the middle of the game. And you just can't do that without having to pay the penalty. And the penalty's coming. That's what Daniel's about. That's what Revelation's about. That's what Jesus kept warnings about in his apocalyptic references. But the judgment shall sit, which means that the judgment is firm. You cannot change that. and they shall take away his dominion to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom, and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom unto the whole heaven, all of it shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominion shall serve and obey him." Here is the end of the matter. As for me, Daniel, my cogitations much troubled me, and my countenance changed in me, but I kept the matter in my heart. Later, toward the end of chapter 8, we discover that God has specifically told him to keep the matter in his heart. Shut this up, he says, until a later time, because the end of the age is not here, it's in the distant future. And then, this prophecy will become real. But don't try to explain it to the people now, God says to Daniel, because they'd never understand what you're talking about. Daniel had enough trouble being inspired to understand what God was talking about. Now, in chapter 8, we pick up again, or we pick up on the third kingdom, which is the kingdom of Greece, and we'll see that a little later as the chapter unfolds. Let's look at it. In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared unto me, even unto me, Daniel, after that which appeared unto me at the first. And I saw in a vision, and it came to pass when I saw that I was at Shushan in the palace. Now, Shushan is actually Susa, S-U-S-A, and Susa became the capital of the Persian Empire. Now, this is before the Persians became the rulers of the world, that Daniel has these visions about the Persian, Middle Persian Empire, and he knows that the capital is in Susa, and that's where he is in his vision. He's not there bodily. He is there in his vision. Like John says in Revelation, I was in the spirit on the Lord's day. The Lord's day there refers to the final day of judgment. And he was there in spirit, not in body. It hadn't come yet. And Daniel is in Susa, or called Shushan here. And it's interesting, it's interesting that archaeology knows all about the city, the capital of Susa. And here it is mentioned by Daniel in this ancient book of the Old Testament. I was at Shushan, or Susa, in the palace, which is in the province of Elam, and I saw in a vision that I was by the river of Ulai, and that was the river that ran through the city of Susa. Then I looked up mine eyes and saw, and behold, there stood before the river a ram. Now, he is using different metaphors here. He talks about a ram, and then later he talks about a he-goat. He's been talking about lions and he's talked about bears and he's talked about leopards and eagles. Now he talks about the Greek Empire under different terms. And you have to be careful because Daniel's book of prophecy is very complex and very involved. The vision which he has here is a vision not of the four kingdoms, but of one of those world kingdoms, and it is given to us under a totally different analogy. I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and behold, there stood before the river a ram, which is a male sheep, which had two horns, that obviously was Medo-Persian, and the two horns were high. The Medo-Persian empire was the mightiest of its day, but one was higher than the other. And the higher came at last. And the higher horn, of course, was Persia, because that was more powerful than Media, and Persia eventually took Media over. In fact, if you have trouble with that, look at verse 20. The ram which thou sawest having two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia. So I'm not interrupting anything, there it is. I saw the ram pushing westward and northward and southward, And the fact that the east is not mentioned here would indicate that Persia has already conquered most of the eastern territories. And now it is moving into the north and south and west. So that no beast might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand, but he did according to his will and became great. And as I was considering, behold, a he-goat. This is a male goat. We've seen a male ram here representing Persia. Now we see a he-goat, a male goat, and there's going to be a battle between the goat and the ram in this vision which Daniel has. I was considering, behold, a he-goat came from the west over the face of the whole earth and touched not the ground, and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. Now this is the Greek Empire, and the notable horn, one horn, is Alexander the Great, who was the Greek Empire. He was, essentially, the Greek Empire. So I saw a he-goat come from the west over the face of the whole earth, and he touched not the ground. Which is a reference to the swiftness with which Alexander conquered the world. It was as if the feet of his soldiers never even touched the ground. They just swept in and overran everything and they were gone. And if you have trouble with the identity here, verse 21 says the rough goat is the king of Greece. So I'm not interpreting anything again. There it is. And the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. That's Alexander, according to secular history. And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his power. And a fair moment ago, Alexander conquered, in about three years, the Persian Empire. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with anger against him, and smoked the ram, and broke his two horns, and there was no power in the ram to stand before him." Immediate Persia, two horns, they both go down. But he cast him down to the ground, and spat upon him, and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. Therefore the he-goat grew very great, and when he was strong, the great horn was broken, and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven. I mentioned that earlier, I'll mention it again. In the end of Alexander's reign, at the age of 33, the Great Horn was broken. And up from the ruins of the Greek Empire came those four national entities which I mentioned to you earlier tonight, namely Macedonia, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. and they were run, or ruled, respectively, by Cassandra, Simachus, Seleucus, and Ptolemy. Now, Ptolemy and Seleucus we hear more about in the stories of the Old Testament. We sort of lose track of the others. But especially do we hear about the Seleucus kingdom, because that was the kingdom of Syria. And it was from Syria that Antiochus Epiphanes came And in the second century before Christ invaded the land of Palestine and the Maccabean household under Judas Maccabeus rose up and revolted against him and conquered him in 165. And that's what the rest of this chapter is about. Now when you come to this chapter which gives in detail the things that happened when Judas Maccabeus fought against Antiochus Epiphanes who came out of one of these four divisions of Alexander the Great's empire. When you come to this chapter, you begin to look at what's happening here, you see that the liberals have reason to say that the book of Daniel was written in the 2nd century B.C., not in the 6th century B.C., because nobody could have had this much information about Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian, and the invasion of the land of Palestine, hundreds of specific detailed prophecies about that, if he hadn't already seen it. So the book had to be written after the events transpired. Of course, that doesn't give God any credit for inspiring the writers of the books of the Bible. And if you don't believe that God has inspired the writers of the Bible, why read the thing? Why are we Christians if we don't believe that the Word of God is literally inspired? The inspired Word of God. He breathed it, that's what inspire means. He breathed his message in. to those who wrote it. It wasn't their message. It was his message. And that's why Daniel knew these things. Because God was speaking through Daniel. And so if you're a liberal and you don't want to believe that, I don't know why you bother with reading the scriptures at all. But if you do believe that the scriptures are the inspired word of God, and you take it seriously, then you're going to bow down before these words You're going to believe them, and you're going to shape your life accordingly. It makes a big difference as to how you approach the Word of God. And out of one of them came forth a little horn. My friends, I'm so sorry to have to stop here, but our time is about run out. I'm going to have to. And that means I'll have to recap just a little bit next time, because I know you won't remember where we are when we get to verse 15. But in verse 9, we begin to see this little horn, which is Antiochus Epiphanes. And incidentally, when you go home and read this, don't become confused. Perhaps it's not enough for me just to tell you not to become confused, because you may anyway. But when you go home and read this, you're going to read about a little horn here, and we read about a little horn earlier. They're not the same little horn. The little horn earlier rose out of the Roman Empire, which was prophesied, and is the Antichrist. This little horn rises out of Syria and is Antiochus Epiphanes, who is a symbol or a type of the Antichrist, the little horn, which will come at the end of the age. So if you think this is involved, then wait until you get on into the next chapter.