Daniel’s Dream of Four Beasts
In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream, and visions passed through his mind as he was lying in bed. He wrote down the substance of his dream.
2 Daniel said: “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea. 3 Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea.4 “The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a human being, and the mind of a human was given to it.
5 “And there before me was a second beast, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, ‘Get up and eat your fill of flesh!’
6 “After that, I looked, and there before me was another beast, one that looked like a leopard. And on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. This beast had four heads, and it was given authority to rule.
7 “After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast—terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns.
According to MacArthur, in this vision the great sea is the Mediterranean, and Daniel stands there watching the 4 winds tearing up the earth, while the sea - humanity - is in turmoil. And from this chaos, come 4 superpowers. These are the same 4 superpowers Nebuchadnezzar saw in Daniel 2, only instead of being seen as great powers from a man's point of view, they are seen as ugly sinful monsters from God's point of view.
MacArthur goes into detail about these 4 superpowers, but really has 2 points. 1 is that the Kingdom of Christ will follow the kingdom of the nations. The second is that the final kingdom of nations hasn't happened yet. Daniel predicts the future kingdoms in these 7 verses, but that final beast has not yet come.
The Kingdom of Christ has not yet come, will not come until the kingdom of the nations is complete. We
1 comment:
I find the explanation of the animals so interesting - it's amazing how the every single last details came to be exactly as God said it would.
The winged lion is Babylon.
The bear is Medo-Persia with the greater side being Persia and ribs referring to vanquished nations.
The leopard is Greece under Alexander the Great. The four heads represent the four generals who divided the kingdom after Alexander's death - ruling over Macedonia, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt.
The fourth beast is the Roman Empire which fell and lived on in divided status (Europe), but will be revived and return to unified strength near Christ's Second Coming - made up of ten parts under kings as well as the 11th king - the Antichrist.
Amazing!
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