Nightmare in Babylon-Daniel 7

As we begin this morning, please turn in your copies of God’s Word to Daniel chapter 7. We will be reading the first 14 verses shortly, so please have these verses marked and ready for that time.

Our last time together in the Book of Daniel, we spent some time reviewing chapters 1-6 and highlighting God’s sovereign power and rule over all things. Acknowledging that even in the midst of troubled times, even in the midst of times of tragedy, God is still in control, He still reigns supreme. In fact, in some ways His supreme reign is made more clear during the difficult times, than those times when everything seems to fall into place.

Now perhaps right now you may be thinking, that doesn’t make since, wouldn’t His supremacy be the clearest when troubles are a distant memory, and honestly, I understand that thought process, but while I understand it, I disagree. At least based on what I see in Daniel. Let me show you how it is I come to that conclusion by doing a very quick look at the first 6 chapters. I promise I’ll keep this short.

In chapter 1 the supremacy of God is clear, not in the lives of the young men that ate the kings delicacies, we don’t even know the names of those young men. His supremacy is seen in Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael, who ate only vegetables and drank only water, yet their physical appearance was 10 times better than the other young men.

In chapter 2, God’s supremacy is clearly seen not in the advisors who were looking for a way to lie to the king and make up an interpretation, but in Daniel who trusted God not just for the interpretation, but also for the details of the dream.

In chapter 3, God’s sovereignty isn’t seen in the thousands and thousands of compromising individuals who bowed to the graven image, but in the 3 Hebrew exiles who stood tall when all else bowed and experienced God’s divine deliverance from the flames of the fiery furnace.

In chapter 4, God’s Kingship was seen not in Nebuchadnezzar’s boast standing tall at the top of his palace, but 7 years later, when he was completely humbled before the Most High God.

In chapter 5, God’s rule is far more clear when Daniel, now in his late 80’s, enters in his normal clothes than when the soon to be dead king tries to clothe him in royal apparel.

In chapter 6, God’s power is unmistakable in His preservation of Daniel in the lions den. Also, keep in mind that in both chapter 3 and the fiery furnace and chapter 6 and the lions den, God’s faithful servants were not prevented from facing tragedy, quite the opposite, their faithfulness placed them in those circumstances. However, God was present with them and sustained them in the midst of their adverse circumstances. He does the same for us as we faithfully serve Him.

By the way, something Pam reminded me of as we were talking over the message on Daniel chapter 6. At the end of chapter 6 the wicked advisors as well as their wives and children were consumed in the same lions den in which God preserved Daniel. This type of thing can be bothersome as it can be a hard pill to swallow when we see the innocent perish. While we may not be too sympathetic of the wicked advisors, the same may not be said for their wives and children. We can’t change what took place that day, and it is not always easy to understand God’s ways. However, this should serve as a valuable lesson for all of us. When we choose to sin, when we choose to do that which we know is not pleasing to God, may we never forget, more often than not, the consequences for our sin move well beyond us individually. There is a ripple affect that spreads well beyond us, which was clearly evident at the end of Chapter 6.

Before we continue our look at chapter 7, let’s go before the Lord in prayer.

Heavenly Father,

We want to express to You this morning our gratitude for Your sovereignty over all things, even when we are faced with the inevitable trials and troubles of life. That even when we are faced with difficult circumstances, we can trust in You and lean on You, because, just as You were with Azariah, Hananiah and Mishael in the fiery furnace, just as You were with Daniel in the Lions Den, You are also with us, never leaving us, never forsaking us. We trust You, our sovereign God.

Now Father, as we look into the pages of Your Word, page after page declaring the power of Your love for us, we pray that you would speak to us in a powerful way.

We pray these things in Jesus Name Amen

Now, would you please stand, in honor of the reading of God’s Word?

Daniel 7:1–14 ESV

In the 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 told the sum of the matter. 2 Daniel declared, “I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. 3 And four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. 4 The first was like a lion and had eagles’ wings. Then as I looked its wings were plucked off, 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. 5 And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear. It was raised up on one side. It had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth; and it was told, ‘Arise, devour much flesh.’ 6 After this I looked, and behold, another, like a leopard, with four wings of a bird on its back. And the beast had four heads, and dominion was given to it. 7 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 broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. 8 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. 9 “As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took His seat; His clothing was white as snow, and the Hair of His Head like pure wool; His throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. 10 A stream of fire issued and came out from before Him; a thousand thousands served Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. 11 “I looked then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking. And as I looked, the beast was killed, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. 12 As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. 13 “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. 14 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.

May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Word, please be seated.

The first thing we see in verse 1, was what we discussed our last time in Daniel 7, which is that as we begin chapter 7, we travel back in time approximately 15 years from the time of the end of chapter 6, to King Belshazzar’s first year of reign, which was 553 BC. Up to this point in time every dream or vision in the book of Daniel were dreams or visions by the pagan rulers, not by any of the Hebrew exiles. Then, of course, there was chapter 5, which wasn’t a dream or vision, but, what appears to be the literal Hand of God appearing out of nowhere to write a message for King Belshazzar on a plaster wall. Finally, here in chapter 7. God delivers a message to His servant, Daniel. This is one of the many shifts we see taking place as we move into the 2nd half of the Book of Daniel. Another shift is moving from historical narrative to apocalyptic prophecy. Another is a shift from an emphasis on the Gentile Nations to the Kingdom of God and yet one more shift, in chapter 8 we move from words written in Aramaic to words written in Hebrew, the language of God’s chosen people, the nation of Israel.

Amir Tsarfati points out one more change in his book on Daniel, he points out “Daniel shifts from wise dream interpreter to confused vision receiver.” (Tsarfati, Amir. Discovering Daniel: Finding Our Hope in God's Prophetic Plan Amid Global Chaos [p. 132].)

Up to this point Daniel had interpreted several dreams, dreams that brought great fear to the pagan rulers who dreamed them, yet as much as they were fearful, we don’t see Daniel struggling with fear in the slightest. That is not the case in this instance, which we will look at more later as we go through this chapter. Moving on in chapter 7 we see Daniel retiring after a long day.

Now I Lay Me Down to……. V. 1

Daniel had now lived in the Babylonian Empire for 52 years. He had survived and thrived under the rule of as many as 3-5 pagan kings and had watched as the mighty empire diminished significantly with each successive ruler, and of those, it seemed pretty clear that non were as bad as King Belshazzar, who was a co-regent with his father.

If Daniel was in his 80’s in chapter 6, he is probably in his late 60’s in chapter 7. I imagine as we begin this chapter Daniel had had quite a day and was probably looking forward to a good nights sleep. He finished all his nightly routines and finally crawled in his bed, pulled the blanket over his tired body and began to drift asleep.

Early on in this ministry God has called me to, 1 long term pastor suggested I keep a pen and paper by the bed, that way if I wake from my sleep with a thought, or an idea of something I can do as God’s servant, I can record my thoughts. I must admit, I have yet to put this idea to practice! But I’m wondering if maybe this might have been a habit of Daniels. Look at what he records in verse 1;

Daniel 7:1 ESV

In the 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 told the sum of the matter.

Or maybe this wasn’t his habit, but this dream was so powerfully frightening that he went directly to his desk to record what he knew to be a direct revelation of God.

The 4 Winds and The Great Sea. Vs. 2

In verse 2 Daniel notes that the first thing he noticed in his dream was “the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea.”

On this map, we can see clearly which sea was considered the Great Sea. It was the Mediterranean Sea. This leads to the question,

What is meant by “the four winds of heaven?

Well there is a good chance that a couple things are at play here, the first is pretty clear, since Daniel describes this as the 4 winds of heaven, God Himself is the One Who is at work here. The use of the number 4 is fairly common in prophetic language, and particularly in reference to earth. There are 4 directions on a compass, and we have often heard or seen the phrase “The 4 corners of the earth”.

What is pictured here is the Hand of the Almighty moving and controlling the entirety of the earth to accomplish His perfect plan.

One commentator I read wrote the following; “

Daniel A. Vision of the Four Beasts (7:1–7)

“the four winds represent God’s judgments, hurling themselves on the ungodly nations from all four points of the compass.

One more thing for us to think about with the mention of the wind, wind is mentioned more that 120 time in Scripture, and more than half of them specifically point to the power and sovereignty of God and in the book of Daniel, every time wind is mentioned it’s referring to God’s power or sovereignty.

The next thing we see from Daniel is he is faced with a delima, the delima;

How do you describe something indescribable? Vs. 4-7

You will notice in his description of each of the first 3 beasts he describes them as “like a”.

“like a lion”, “like a bear”, “like a leopard”. In other words, he’s thinking to himself;

“How do I describe these beasts when I have never seen any of them before?”

So he attempts to describe them as best he can by comparing them to animals he and the readers would be able to picture in their minds. His attempt at describing things he had never seen before is very similar to what we see the Apostle John do about 626 years in the future when he also attempts to describe the indescribable as he records his visions in the Book of Revelation.

Moving forward, Daniel makes a very clear distinction between the first 3 beasts and the 4th beast.

The first 3 were similar, in that he could at least think of created animals that in some ways resembled the ones he saw in his vision. These leads me to believe that the coming kingdoms, as well as the one kingdom that was already on the scene were;

Empires that functioned in similar ways.

While they were all fearful and powerful, they functioned like most pagan powerful nations.

When he looked at the 4th beast, well he couldn’t even think of any animal he had ever seen that resembled in any way the 4th beast. Additionally, while the first 3 were powerful and frightening, their power, and the fear they instilled in Daniel far exceeded what he saw in the first 3.

Now let’s begin our look at the first 3.

The first beast he see’s he describes as;

Like A Lion and had eagles wings. Vs. 4

I find it fascinating that the vision includes both a lion and eagles wings. Let me explain this fascination by asking 2 questions;

What animal is said to be the king of the beasts? The lion.

What bird is considered to be the king of the birds? The eagle.

So Daniels vision of this first beast includes both an animal and a bird that are considered the kings of their prospective areas of creation.

Something else of note, in a lot of ancient literature, a common symbol for Babylon is a lion with eagles wings, which leads me to guess that there is a chance that Daniel may have had a good idea that, if this beast represented a kingdom, it would represent the Babylonian Empire.

The reason I say, “if the beast represented a kingdom” is, 50 years have elapsed since King Nebuchadnezzar’s vision in chapter 2 and Daniels vision in chapter 7. We link them together easily because it is easy for us to remember chapter 2, we only looked at it a few weeks ago, whereas for Daniel, it’s been 50 years. We know Daniel was alarmed by the vision and unsure what it meant, because he specifically asks, what I am guessing is an angel, in verse 16 to explain the dream to him.

Now lets look more closely at the vision. We find out in verse 17 that the 4 beasts do, in fact represent coming, or in the case of the Babylonian kingdom, a kingdom already present.

The vast majority of believing historians I have studied, believe that this first beast represented the Babylonian Empire. Which, by the way matched the golden head of the statue in King Nebuchadnezzar’s vision in chapter 2.

Several also believe that there is a two-fold representation here. While it is true it represents the Babylonian Empire, many also believe that even more specifically, it represents King Nebuchadnezzar representing the Babylonian Empire. He was the most famous and most powerful leader of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, which was the empire that existed at that time. One of the reasons so many believe it specifically refers to King Nebuchadnezzar representing the Babylonian Empire is the further descriptions of the beast as well as what happened to the beast. Look at the description in verse 4;

Daniel 7:4 ESV

The first was like a lion and had eagles’ wings. Then as I looked its wings were plucked off, 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.

Compare what we see in this verse with what we saw take place in chapter 4. I won’t go into a lot of details on what took place in chapter 4, but a quick summary of what took place.

King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream that frightened him greatly. When Daniel provided the interpretation, he basically let the king know this was a warning that if he didn’t humble himself before the Lord, God Himself would humble the king. Of course the king refused and God made him roam around like an animal for 7 years. No ability to speak, he ate grass like a cow, his hair grew out, his fingernails grew out. He literally lost his mind for 7 years. This matches well to visual of “wings were plucked off”. Then at the end of the 7 years, after King Nebuchadnezzar repented and humbled himself before the Lord, God restored his mind and restored him to his place as a king. The king writes “my reason returned to me”. Which fits well with the beast being “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”.

Why don’t we stop here and continue to look at the other beasts our next time together.

Let’s close our time in prayer.