Well, getting the end right is absolutely essential to good storytelling, especially true if the characters encounter huge difficulties and obstacles along the way. If it ends right, then those obstacles and difficulties actually make the end even better. Case in point, something very obvious, the story of Cinderella. In fact, we've come to name things. Oh, this is a Cinderella story. where Cinderella loses her dad and then is stuck with the wicked stepmother and two wicked stepsisters. But in the end, she's chosen by the prince and goes and lives in the castle with him. And that sweet, happy ending is all the better because of the horrible things we saw her go through. Now, there's some truth in there, truth within the fiction that's reflected, and we can see this in our own lives. As we look through history, we see tyranny, we see oppression, we see injustice, we see power-mad madmen, especially in relation to God's people, speaking of martyrs, persecution. And the question then, is there hope? Is there a happy ending? Individually, what do we do when we're stuck in the middle and things are difficult? We're restless, we're homesick, we're defeated, we're depressed, we're broken, we're scarred, we're marginalized. Is everything going to be okay? Well, I can't promise that individually your life, the things that you've gone through, you will end with a happy ending. And yet I can definitely promise that if you follow Christ and you put your faith in Him, there is an amazing happy ending coming for all who are His. And that is what the scriptures tell us, and that's where we have Daniel. Here he comes, Daniel 7. Actually, Daniel 7 through 12, the end of this book, in the prophetic visions that Daniel had, he leaves us with a vision of hope. especially for those who are in captivity. Again, as we've said before, we're not in captivity like the Jewish people were in Babylon, and yet we feel the tension of being sojourners, aliens, not home yet. If you're feeling at home, you might wanna double check. We're reminded here that we're not home yet, and yet there's an amazing vision of hope. for those who've placed their faith in him. In fact, our main point today is this. Daniel's vision of how it all ends paints a vivid description for the believer, providing hope when life seems most difficult. Daniel gives us quite a ride. Now, today is not a holistic overview of all end times, apocalyptic, eschatology, not at all. Last year, this time, we did a five-week series on the end times, and if you wanna know kind of a fuller perspective of that, we're just gonna be looking at some key components to that today. And it's quite a mysterious chapter for many. And what we wanna do is unpack it in such a way that you can actually understand it. Sometimes we're intimidated by prophetic literature in the scriptures. And there's been a lot of wrong interpretations and manipulations in that. And yet we wanna see what the scripture says for itself and how we can apply it to our lives. In fact, this part of the book of Daniel seven through 12 is what's called apocalyptic literature. And what that means specifically for us as Christians, here's a great definition that I want to give you as we're looking into this today. Apocalyptic literature thus proclaims the theology of hope to those whom the world has marginalized. It reminds us that God is presently on the throne and that he will ultimately triumph. In the meantime, whatever the present cost may be in terms of suffering, obedience to God is the only way, and I would add to this, and totally worth it because of the ending. Now we find ourselves in Daniel chapter seven. The first six chapters really cover the history of what took place with the Jews in captivity with Babylon and Medo-Persia and on. These seven through 12 are the prophetic visions of Daniel at the end that span the time of Daniel all the way to the first coming of Christ and then all the way to the second coming of Christ as well. And the interesting thing about Daniel seven is we go back a little bit in the historical story in that it says and starts off that in the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, which is about 553 BC at that time, That takes us back before Daniel 5, because we already know Belshazzar is out of the picture. He's been defeated. Medo-Persia has taken things over on the timeline. But we're going back to that first year that he was in reigning, and Daniel receives this vision. And this vision, interesting enough, mirrors the vision that Nebuchadnezzar got in Daniel chapter 2. And so we have, in one sense, duplicate visions. Now they're not the same vision, but they cover the same topic. What's gonna happen with the nations and where does God's people fit in in regard to that? We'll talk about that in just a minute. And from chapter two, verse four, all the way through chapter seven, it was originally written in Aramaic. Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrews, because that's what the Jewish people spoke. What we find here in chapter two through seven, why is it written in Aramaic? That was the language of all the peoples, the international language of its day. Why is it in Aramaic? One deduction is that God wanted to make sure that every nation hears this. at that time. And here we are in English all these years later, reading these very words that have great application to us and to our lives. So would you please stand? And I wanna read to you what I think are the two best verses in this whole chapter. And so we do this in honor of God's word. If you got one of the Bibles, page 830, you'll find verses 13 and 14 of Daniel 7. says this, and I saw in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man. And he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory. and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. Amen. That's God's word to us, and what an amazing vision. of this one called the Son of Man. And we'll get to that in just a minute. So what I'm gonna do this time as we go through the scriptures here is we usually explain and apply, explain and apply. I'm gonna explain the text and then we're gonna do some application at the end with five points at the end, just for flow's sake. And we're gonna see three parts to this vision. Daniel says, around 10 times, I look and I saw. So he gets this picturesque vision. Now, why is he getting a similar vision that Nebuchadnezzar did? We're looking 40, 50 years later. Daniel's probably in his 70s or 80s. He was much younger then. It was a different time. It was given to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and Daniel interpreted it. This time, Daniel directly gets a similar vision representing the same thing, though different symbols were involved. and it has to do with the nations and the end of it all. Well, anytime God repeats anything, anytime God says anything, we are to listen. But when he repeats something, we know that God is saying to us, you better get the end right. Just like in my opening illustration, the end is what matters most. And so in this sense, he is saying, pay attention to the end. You don't wanna miss the implications of that for our lives now. And in that, we're given great hope as they are in captivity and as we are still waiting, stuck in the middle with the things that we see, hoping for the end of it all. So in these chapters that we see, in chapter seven, it's the first of four visions that Daniel has. In chapter eight, he gets the second one. In chapter nine, he gets the third one. And the fourth one comes in chapters 10 through 12. And so let me read to you these first couple of verses here that kind of establishes where we're going. It says this, Daniel saw a dream, verse one, in that first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon. Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head, as he lay in his bed. Then he wrote down the dream, and he told us some of the matter. And Daniel declared, I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. And four great beasts came out of the sea, different from one another. Well, it starts off with a bang. He sees the heavens and the winds stirring the ocean, unsettling stormy seas of chaos, unrest. and turmoil, and what comes out? Four successive beasts come out from the sea. In verse 17, it says they were earthly. That's not contradictory, it's just saying their origin is from the sea, from the earth. They are earthly, they are earthy. The sea is where the monsters dwell, and that's exactly what comes out in these four successive beasts. Now, what are these beasts? Well, like Daniel chapter two, we know from that story, the illustration was of a statue, a gold head, silver chest and arms, bronze midsection, and iron legs representing four nations. And we know that because Daniel is told that that first head is Nebuchadnezzar in the Babylonian empire. And here we are now, 40, 50 years later, when that's about over. God's showing you can trust his prophecy. You can trust his predictions because the next one is on deck and ready to go. And that's the Medo-Persian empire, the silver one. And in this case, we're gonna see the same countries, the same nations in world history represented instead of a statue, this time it's beasts. And so let's take a look. This is Babylon, this is Medo-Persia, this is the Greek empire and the Roman empire. Now look at how they're described. Verse four, the first was like a lion and had eagle's wings. That is a traditional historical symbol of the Babylonian empire. You see an etchings, you see it in places. The king of the beasts, the king of the birds. There was Babylon the great, but then it gets personal here. Then as I looked, its wings were plucked off. Now we're kind of getting into Nebuchadnezzar. If you remember in the story from Daniel, in chapter three, chapter four, he was humbled. That's kind of the idea here, this bird's wings were plucked, he was humbled. And it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and the mind of a man was given to it. What do we remember about Nebuchadnezzar? He acted like a cow for seven years as punishment for setting up an idol to be worshiped. And then he was restored. And so what we get here is a little nuance where, yes, this big bad monster, lion, eagle, and behind it, it's just a man, just Nebuchadnezzar. He was a cow for seven years, not literally, but acted like one. That's Babylon. And now we're coming to that close already. and seeing this next one coming up. Verse five, and behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear. It was raised up on one side, a hunchback bear. It had three ribs in its mouth, bloodthirsty between its teeth. And it was told, arise, devour much flesh. had an insatiable desire to conquer. This is Medo-Persia, that hump. Persia was the bigger portion of that media part. They conquered three countries. They conquered Egypt. They conquered Babylon. They conquered Lydia. And most scholars would say those three ribs represent their bloodthirsty ways of conquering. So we see this bloodthirsty beast, Medo-Persia. And then after that, verse six, and after this, I looked and behold another, like a leopard. Leopard's not quite like a lion, but fast and ferocious, speedy. And it says it has four wings of a bird on its back. That means it can go the distance, not only fast, but it can cover a big amount of land. And that's exactly what's being illustrated here in the Greek army, and especially Alexander the Great. He conquered from the Mediterranean all the way to India on the map. It was massive, it was huge, and he did it in record time. And it says, and this beast had four heads. At the end of his life, rather than one successor, they divided up the Greek kingdom into four kings, through four kings, Lysimachus and Cassander and Seleucus and Ptolemy. The Greek empire lasted from 331 to 146. The Medo-Persian empire lasted from 539 to 331. And then here comes another one. each one worse than the one before in many ways. Verse seven and eight, after this I saw in the night visions and behold a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth. It devoured and broken pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. This sounds like Rome. And from that first illustration too, the iron legs represented Rome. And here we see iron again, but we see something significant here that they're terrifying, dreadful, exceedingly strong. The Roman empire was the mightiest in many ways of all time. They lasted from 146 BC to 395 AD. And really there was traces of the Roman empire that lasted all the way to the 1400s. Amazing. Empire. And yet, something different going on here. In fact, it says so. It says this, it was different from all the beasts that were before it. There's no comparison, if you notice. It just says a beast with iron teeth. It was so ferocious and so terrifying, there was nothing in the world that they can compare it to. All those other ones are kind of mutated things, but you kind of get the idea of a bear, get the idea of a lion with eagle's wings. You can kind of put that together. But this one, it's an iron beast and it's awful. It's terrifying. But it's different from all the beasts that were before it. It had 10 horns. I considered the horns and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things. Now here's what we know kind of ends. We see these successive kingdoms from Babylon to Rome, and we see this has a connection to Rome, but there's nothing that has happened in history that mirrors what's described there in these 10 horns, and then three that are usurped by one. And this one, this little horn, is the likes of a man and a mouse speaking great things. We know that these 10 horns later in this, in the interpretation that came from the angel, that these are kings, simultaneous kings, a 10 nation kind of confederacy that happens. And what we do as we look here too, and we see this happens actually at the end of the ages. So this is something that has yet to have happened yet. We see its connection to Rome, but it's nothing that we can look back on and say has happened. Some have tried to do that and it just doesn't fit. That means there's something that is still to come. And that's what sets this apart. And then we see this little horn that pops up and it says, he has eyes like a man and mouth speaking great things. He's intelligent and yet arrogant. The timing and description of this little horn matches the ultimate antagonist and enemy of Christ and his people in scripture. He's known by other names. He's a little horn here. In chapter 9, verses 26 through 27 in Daniel, he's the prince who is to come. In 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verses 1 through 12, he's the man of lawlessness. In Revelation, he's called the beast. And most succinctly, in 1 John 2.18, the best name as far as understanding exactly what he's about, he is called the Antichrist. 1 John 2.18, saying that the Antichrist will come at the end of the age. And so we're seeing this connect together. And the spirit of the Antichrist is the one who denies Christ. He is the antithesis of everything good about our Lord and Savior. He is the opposite. It also says in 1 John 2 that many Antichrists have come and we can look through history and we can point to ones who seem very Antichrist. The Hitlers, the Nero's, maybe there's even personal people that we know that have acted in complete Dimetric opposition to our Lord and Savior in our lives. Antichrists have come and yet there is one, the Antichrist, unlike any that have ever, that will rule the world and rule it with an iron hand. And so we find him here, Little Horn, the Little Horn, if you will, this man of lawlessness. This is a frightening vision here that we get, how God sees these nations. They are mutated monsters, scary to us, but not to him. Now we get the second part of this vision, and that's starting in verse nine through 14. And this is the reign of God. This is part two of this vision, the reign of God. Same vision, next slide, next chapter, next picture. The scene switches to something completely in contrast. Look at this. As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was white as snow, and the hair on his head like pure wool. Hey, wait a minute, we just sang about him. His throne was fiery flames. Its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him. A thousand thousand served him, and 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him. The court sat in judgment, and the books were opened." Whoa, this is quite a contrast to what we just saw with these beasts. This ancient of days, who is this? This is God the Father. These thrones were set up and the Ancient of Days takes his seat. Center stage, center throne, center place, center focus. His clothing white as snow represents his purity, his holiness. His white hair, it's not about age here, but wisdom and eternality. He is the Ancient of Days. He has a fiery throne with fiery wheels on it. In those days, thrones, a lot of them had wheels on them, so they could wheel the king around to different places, and that's what's taking place here. He's setting up shop before these beasts. And it's a stream of fire, almost a vision where he's seated like a volcano. And the stream of fire, and every stream leads somewhere. And we can see from the vision in Revelation that there is a lake of fire. You see the thousands and thousands, 10,000 times 10,000. Some of you accountants are trying to figure out the exact number of what that is, and that's really not the point of that. It's saying that there is a multitude that is countless, really. It's great power and might. Yahweh is the Lord of hosts. God is the judge over all, and all serve him, and the books were opened. It's time to render justice at the end of it all. Revelation 20 verse 15 says this, and listen to this, anyone whose name was not found in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. That is something that makes you gulp. That is sobering and a reminder. You don't have to be as bad as the antichrist. to be counted among him. If you're a rejecter of Christ, even if you're a nice person, if your name is not written in the book of life and how it gets written is by faith, receiving everything that is given by grace from God through Jesus Christ, your name is written and it's written not in pencil. But if it's not there, you get to join these beasts. And we see this in verse 11. Look what happens here. Daniel is getting quite the rubberneck going on here. He says, I look then, because the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking, we read that in verse eight, got his attention. We see this beautiful picture of the Ancient of Days, and there's this obnoxious voice, the little horn, who's saying things. And we read in other places in Scripture, these boasts, they're blasphemous. In fact, in 2 Thessalonians 2, it says that he exalts himself and he proclaims himself to be God. And he's saying all of this here, and then look what happens. It's almost as if mid-sentence, he's cut off. And I look, the beast was killed and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with the fire, the beast, including the horns, done with. It's almost as if he's talking these blasphemies and mid-sentence, God says, shut up. and cuts him off and casts into the lake of fire. That's good. That's good news, in fact. Note too, if the Antichrist is called the little horn, what of all about those lesser Antichrists? They're just moles and pimples in the history's halls. These first three then in verse 12 says this, these other kingdoms, as for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. What about them? Well, I'll tell you this, they were all absorbed by the conquering kingdom that came after them. And so in a sense, they were defeated, but they remained. And so they continued on until the last beast. And after the fourth beast, as we see, There's no more kingdoms except the kingdom of our King. And we see that here in verses 13 and 14. I saw in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man and he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him and to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom that all people's nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. This is good news. And this is meant to excite good news in a people stuck in captivity, in a place they don't wanna be ruled by people they don't wanna be ruled by. You ever feel that way? Who is this son of man? I was waiting to hear somebody whisper it. You know who it is, it's Jesus. Yes, thank you. You know the answer here, the Son of Man. In fact, this was Jesus' favorite self-explanation, self-description of who he is. It's a term for Messiah. He uses that term for himself 71, more than 71 times in all four gospels. So that when he said Son of Man, his Jewish audience would go, oh, oh, oh. Oh, you're saying you are God? Because we see this here, like a son of man, he's fully human, truly human. And yet he's like a son of man and there's something unique to him. Well, of course there is. He came in the clouds. He didn't come from the sea. He didn't come from the earth. The clouds signify his divinity. And so for this original audience, they might've been scratching their, okay, he's like a man and yet he's divine, huh? We have a benefit, don't we? Where we stand in history. We know who this is. This is Jesus, the God-man. In fact, when Jesus, he rose from the dead, He preached and hung out with his disciples for, I believe, 60 days, and then he ascended to heaven. Remember? And he went up into the clouds. And then what happened? They're up there looking, and two angels pop up, and they're like, hey, why are you looking up there? Do you know he's coming back the same way? Oh, yeah, because we read it here. And Jesus also said it in Matthew chapter 24. Oh, and then it says in Revelation chapter one, verse seven, and it says it in Revelation chapter 19, where we see him not coming in a manger, but coming on the white horse. Who's he coming for? We just read about him, a little horn. It's over. But we notice, too, that when he comes, He is the God-man. He is the last Adam. The first Adam ruined everything. He failed at dominion. He failed at perfection. But this one, like the Son of Man, is the last Adam, and he will reign forever. Some would say and interpret that in verse 14 that, yeah, he came during the Roman Empire and became king, and that's what this is all talking about. There's something more. Of course he did. Scriptures tell us that, that once he ascended to heaven and went into the clouds, he was seated at the right hand of the Father. The scriptures predicted that. Psalm 110.1 says, the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. So Christ is in heaven, reigning from heaven, and yet, that until part has yet to happen, and we get its connection here. That there is coming a time as each one of those four nations, even though they're symbolic by these beasts, are real nations on the planet, there's a fifth nation coming, and it's the last one, and it's real, and Christ is going to reign. The millennial kingdom, we read about it in Revelation chapter 20. That's the until. And here we see this, the ancient of days making them all a footstool to Jesus. And then notice that, that all peoples, nations, languages should serve him. Where have we seen that kind of language before? The Great Commission. go into all the world, making disciples of all nations. And then we look in Revelation 5, in the future kingdom when all is done, and Revelation 7, and who's around the throne worshiping? Someone from every tribe, tongue, nation, and people. Guess what that means? That means missions works. It's a guarantee. Do you want a guarantee? Missions. And we see it here. They're gonna be there worshiping Christ at the end of the age. This is good news. See, there's no succeeding kingdoms after this, this is it. God himself will judge and reign, and we will be his. Now, the vision explained here, verses 15 through 28. We're not gonna hit in detail all of this, because some of it is repetition of what we've already read here. Verses 15 and 16, Daniel is there, he sees this vision, he is blown away. And he sees an angel, hey, could you help me understand this? And we look at that too and go, yeah, we need a little help, right? Verses 17 and 18, we see that these beasts and these horns are kings and kingdoms. We see that we are not home yet. Verses 19 and 20, we see, again, reiterated the rise of a little horn to dominance over the other 10, defeating three of them. And then verse 21, this is what it says. As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them. It's gonna get worse before it gets better, especially at the end. This is what we see, the little horn who's coming. It says this in Revelation 13, the beast makes war on the saints. In his short reign of power, he is terror to those who name the name of Christ. And every little antichrist has modeled that. But there's an until, we love these untils, the untils and the buts that we see in scripture here, and here's one. Verse 22, until the horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, until the ancient of days came and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom. Did you catch that? It's amazing. First of all, this little horn has an expiration date. It's over. And then, whatever we've gone through, the Ancient of Days makes right and gives us the kingdom. That is an incredible promise that we receive there. Verses 23 through 24, again, talks about the difference of this fourth kingdom. It's a world domination. In many ways, the old Roman Empire ruled the world, the known world at that time, but it was really just the Mediterranean, and maybe a little bit past that, up to England, cross over to some of the Middle East, Africa, of course. But this is coming, this next Roman Empire that's connected to it is gonna be worldwide. And it kind of makes sense, right? 10 nations coming out of this. I'm not gonna predict this, I'm gonna talk about that in a minute, but we still see the Mediterranean as kind of the center focus of everything, right? Right now, turn on the news and what's going on, and the Middle East, Europe, Africa, it all kind of converges around that area. So this kind of seems realistic and real that this could be coming from that. I'm not here to make any predictions on that, because I don't think that's what prophecy wants us to do. It wants us to recognize it after it happens and go, oh, here we are. Not, ooh, I wonder if, is this the 10 nation European Confederacy, or is this, you know, I don't know, could be, it might be, we don't know yet, because this hasn't happened yet. And when it does, we're gonna know. Actually, I hope we're gonna be in heaven, having been raptured, and the tribulation folks will know that this is what's going on, right? And then we find verse 25, he shall speak words against the Most High, he shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and shall think to change the times and the law. This is the audacity of little horn. He will speak words against the most high. We see that in Revelation 13, the beast and the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling. And it says, he will wear out the saints to the most high. He'll be a torment to them. And he shall think to change the times and the law. What is that? He sets himself up as God. He changes the holidays. He changes the dates. He changes whatever he wants to because that's the audacity of what he thinks. He radically tries to restructure society. And we know this happens and it says here for times, times and a half, a three and a half year period at the end of the tribulations talked about in Daniel nine. Daniel 12, Matthew 24, Revelation 12, all those places. And then look at verses 26 and 27. Here's another one. But the court shall sit in judgment and his dominion shall be taken away to be consumed and destroyed to the end. All bad guys come to an end in the return of our Savior. the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High." who are saints. Those are special Christians who do miracles and you can pray to. Absolutely not, that's not what the scriptures tell us. Old Testament and New Testament, a saint is someone who's placed their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, whether it's from the Old Testament perspective or the New Testament. There's no works righteousness anywhere in there. It is all about receiving God's pardon, the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man. And if you have placed your faith in him, you are a saint. meaning one who is set apart. And here is the ultimate thing you're set apart for, his kingdom to inherit it. This is incredible. Boy, doesn't this sound good if you are in captivity in Babylon in 553 BC. This sounds good being in captivity in 2024 in the United States of America, that this is coming, be nothing like it. And yet we see in verse 25, here's the end of the matter. As for me, Daniel, my thoughts greatly alarmed me, and my color changed, but I kept the matter in my heart. You see, there's a hope there, and yet he sees the reality of all these nations coming, the difficulty of the little horn, and knows that at the end, it's gonna be amazing, but the middle, it's gonna be rough, and it's gonna continue to be rough. but that makes the end all the sweeter because of it. So what should we see now? Five pictures, just kind of running through that way fast, light speed, but there's five pictures that form a panorama of hope for us in the return of Christ that I want us to see here that I believe Daniel has given us. And the first picture is this, the inferiority of earthly kingdoms. The greatness of man's kingdoms are mere mutated beasts, monsters. Beasts, animals, have no conscience. They bear no image of God. These monsters are counterfeit creatures resembling the worst of man's depravity. Yet this zoo is on God's leash, used for his purposes. Okay, even Babylon was predicted in Deuteronomy 28 by Moses, saying that you're gonna break the covenant one day and an eagle's gonna come in and swoop you up and take you captive, centuries before. And the good news about all these monsters, they all have an expiration date. Medo-Persia, 200 years. Babylon, 100 years. Greek, less than 200 years. Rome, quite a few centuries, but done. All of them, done, and so forth. We can march through history and say that of every kingdom, every nation goes the way of extinction and ultimately all will at the end. History is riddled with these monsters, these kings and kingdoms like this. For every King David, every Abraham Lincoln, every Winston Churchill, there's at least 20 Saul's, Hitler's, Stalin's, and Nero's. How many good leaders have there been in our history of the world, 6,000 years? Think about that. I'm not gonna ask for a raise of hands, but to give suggestions, the bad outweighs the good. God is illuminating for us the true reality of history here. History is not a random march of time, cyclical, repeating itself. Time reveals that there is a spiritual war going on, and it's the kingdom of God versus the kingdoms of the world. Paul said it this way in Ephesians 6, didn't he? For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over the nations. No, over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Yes, the evil behind the scenes, the devil and his minions have influenced nations since the very beginning, but he's the ultimate evil behind it all. And what we see here in all these nations, and as we read in our history books, here's the clarity that God gives us. There is a war going on between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the world. It puts it all in perspective. And then we're reminded, who are the earthly kingdoms inferior to? And that leads to number two, the importance of worshiping the one true God. We get a similar picture in Daniel chapter two. Nebuchadnezzar has this terrifying dream. Daniel raises his hand and says, I'll get interpretation for you. And he does, the Lord grants him that. And then what does Daniel do, go and tell him? No, he goes out and he worships the Lord before he goes and talks to Nebuchadnezzar. And we see this beautiful psalm of Yahweh. And here we see something similar. We get this nasty image of all these gross beasts in verses one through eight, and then we get this beautiful vision of the ancient of days, very sobering and majestic vision, and we get this beautiful vision of the Son of Man. And it reminds us that worship is absolutely essential to keeping us on track and understanding how this all measures. What is worship? Worship is giving glory to God. And it's not just saying, I give you glory, God. That helps, that's good. Don't not do that. But it's extolling the specifics of who he is. Then it reminds us of who he is. That's what we sing about. We sing about earlier, but it's not just singing. Worship isn't just singing. It's how we view everything. that we value God, we give him the worth that he deserves in our lives. And you know what? It's a remedy. A remedy to what? These beasts. Because we're fearful. We look at these beasts, even Daniel was like, this is scary. I kept it to myself. I didn't know how to process this. And that's what we do, we read the headlines, we look and go, oh no, oh no, oh no, the sky is falling. And here's Daniel saying, do not believe that the sky is falling because the monsters may be scary, but the majesty of Yahweh is greater. And so we worship him because it reminds us that the big baddies out there are just little horns to our Savior. Be reminded of that. Be reminded of that, not just this election year, every election year and every year in between. You see, the Ancient of Days sets up his throne and he judges the nations and they do not last. And then the Son of Man comes and sets up his final eternal kingdom. He is worthy of our worship and that refocuses everything for us. And that leads to number three too. Another reminder, another picture in this is that the impending doom of godless opposition is impending, it's impending. We see verses 11, 12 stuck between these two beautiful pictures of the ancient of days and the son of man. And what we find in between is both of these crush the little horn in between. God is not scared of these beasts. Their heads are mounted on the hall of history. It says this in 2 Thessalonians 2.8. This is one of those verses I know I've read several times, but this time it was like, I don't remember reading this. And then the lawless one will be revealed, the little horn, the antichrist, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. This is not a duel to the finish. He's done, just like that. He breathes on him and his appearing, he's gone. He's cast to the lake of fire. No problem. Satan and the Antichrist are thrown in the lake of fire in Revelation 19 and 20. And it says everyone who's not written in the book of life. Sobering. All the Antichrist, the Antichrist, Satan, they will all face the Ancient of Days and there will be complete justice and all the bad guys will be forever gone. Forever gone. That's the impending doom of godless opposition. And then that leads to number four, the inevitable coronation of the Messiah. You see, the Messiah did not eradicate Rome in his first coming. He established his throne and is seated next to the Father. But at the end, Jesus will reign and it will be more than just spiritual. It will be in this fifth real kingdom. that will obliterate all that has preceded it at the end. And Daniel 2, verse 44 reminds us of that. A kingdom that is left to no other people. There'll be no other kingdoms after that. It will be one forever. It'll stand forever. And this is not from a monster, but the Son of Man who came and walked among us, lived the perfect life that we couldn't have lived, went to the cross, died to secure our salvation, rose again on the third day victorious, ascended to the clouds, and he's coming back in the clouds for those who are his and to reign with them forever. And that leads to number five, the inheritance of God's saints. Jesus, when he gave the parable of the sheep and the goats, Jesus tells us that after the sheep have been put up on the right, the goats are gone, says this, then the king will say to those on his right, come, you are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. There's Paul in Romans 8, verse 15. How did we receive that? He just spent the first seven chapters talking about grace alone, faith alone, and Christ alone. And he says, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. We do not achieve God's millennial kingdom. We inherit it from the one who did achieve it and conquered dominion. It's Christ, it's a gift at the end of the age. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. And he comes in the clouds. God's kingdom come will be one where the saints of God will be unhindered in benefit, joy, and prosperity forever. It's a contrast to anything we've seen in 6,000 years, even America, which is probably the best example that we have, and it's frail. So here we are, being stuck in the middle is rough, but it contributes to the grand end, the ultimate hope that we have. When we see the prophetic, it's not so that we can figure out before, but after it happens. The Jews weren't in a basement watching YouTube clips to try and figure out who the bear was gonna be after the first one. It was obvious that when Medo-Persia took over, that it matched what was predicted, oh, we're at the bear phase of this. God is on schedule, he is at work, so we're gonna keep trusting him. You see it more like a bingo card than a tarot card, if you will. The bingo card, you can mark off the lion, the eagle thingy. You can mark off the leopard king thing. You can mark off the bear. We haven't seen the ten horns yet. Leave that space open. The little horn space, don't mark that off yet. We haven't seen it yet. Don't try to figure it out. Don't pencil in Gavin Newsom in that or anything like that, okay? We haven't seen it yet, so that was a cheap shot. It's okay, this is the fifth sermon. I'm a little loopy, and here we go, right? Finishing out. You see, prophecy affirms that God is God. It's not a secret that we have to unlock. It'll happen, and when it does, we go, oh, here we are. It's kind of like the mall map, as I mentioned, right? I'm somewhere stuck between JCPenney and Macy's. How do I get out of the mall? So where are we? Those four beasts have come. Part of it hasn't come yet, and so where are we? We're in the church age, where Christ has called us. So what do we do? Someone asks you, so what do I do? Keep being an ordinary Christian. I know that's not glamorous, but it's what God has called us to. And what does that mean? That we've got the great commandment on us, that we'll love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and the second, like it, love our neighbor. And then we have the great commission, we're to be about making disciples, knowing that it works, because somebody's gonna be there from all the tribes, tongues, and nations. And so we are a hopeful, cross-taking, disciple-making, God-loving, people-loving people. Faithful, just like Daniel, in the spirit of Daniel. He had some great opportunities, but he was just, he put his head down, he was doing what God called him to do, he was having influence, God was using him in some unique ways. But we learn from that. He wasn't running around terrified, the sky is falling, oh no, wringing his hands. God has me where he has me and I'm gonna live and serve him faithfully. I'm not gonna bow to the idols. They can throw me in the lion's den even when the lion's mouths aren't shut. That's what you do, where do you look? Daniel is telling us to look here. He says this, if then you have been raised with Christ in Colossians 3. Seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on things on the earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory. So when Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, when the fascists, communists, socialists, Nazis, terrorists, Democrats, and Republicans breathe down your neck, your ultimate hope is in the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man, coming with justice and inheritance to give to those who've placed their faith in Him. Oh, our citizenship, according to Paul, Philippians 3.20, is in heaven. And from it, we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. So, let's cease with the civil wars among citizens of the same kingdom. When you face the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man, will you be judged as a rebel? Will your name be found in the Book of Life? If not, it says you'll be cast in the lake of fire. I know that's hard to swallow, and yet it's the reality. And so then the other option is a pretty good option. A saint who's placed their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one who can save, knowing that when he comes, you will inherit the kingdom with him. Let me ask you today, are you his? You can be today. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your kind words here. It's mysterious, it's a mind boggler, and yet when we pick it apart and we see it, what you want us to know is absolutely clear, that you're in control, that you're on your way, and that there is an amazing ending that we do not want to miss. Lord, count us as saints among your people, knowing that we can't do it on our own, but we need your grace and your mercy to save us and to give us eternal life, and to give us an inheritance that we could never even possibly imagine. And we thank you for such a promise today. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Hey, thanks for tuning in to our Redeemer YouTube channel. 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