Beast Mode | Sunday, July 23, 2023

Daniel spoke, saying, "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 up from the sea, each different from the other. The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings... And suddenly another beast, a second, like a bear... After this I looked, and there was another, like a leopard... After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong. It had huge iron teeth... and it had ten horns... I was watching in the night visions, and behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven!... Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom... His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away." (Daniel 7)

When the world goes beast mode, the believer's hope is fixed on one certainty: in the end, God wins and His people possess the kingdom forever.

A Pivot Into the Apocalyptic

This summer we are making our way through the twelve chapters of Daniel, and we've reached the halfway point. The first six chapters follow a clear pattern—what scholars call court narratives—stories common to literature from the ancient Near East 2,500 years ago. But when we arrive at Daniel chapter 7, there is a pivot. We move out of the narrative story form and into the dreamscape, the apocalyptic dream state.

When people hear the word apocalyptic, they think Armageddon, asteroids, chaos in the world. But the word apocalypsis in the Greek means to reveal—the revealing of a mystery. A biblical mystery is intended to be understood, but it is not known unless there is a revealing. It's like a Christmas gift, wrapped: it's meant to be opened, but you have to wait for the unveiling. In apocalyptic literature, God is unfolding His plan for the world.

The Trouble With Dreams

Have you ever had a strange dream that troubled you, yet you sensed it meant something? Daniel did. Look at verse 15: "I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit within my body, and the visions of my head troubled me." Daniel has a dream he can tell has relevance for the future, for Israel, and perhaps for all the world—and it troubles him.

Dreams are fascinating because we're not entirely certain where they come from. A large segment of society thinks dreams are merely biochemical firings of neurons originating within the mind. But an equally large segment is convinced that sometimes dreams come from without, from a source other than ourselves. In this passage, Daniel's dream comes from another source. Dreams are also frustrating because they can be so unclear and fade so fast—like a morning mist in the summer sun. With that in mind, we come to Daniel's dream: fascinating, weird, cryptic, apocalyptic, seemingly relevant to the future—and frustrating.

How Clear Is the Future, Really?

Anyone who tells you they fully and perfectly understand what is happening in Daniel 7 or 8 is clearly wrong—in the same way it would be hard for you to give a perfect interpretation of the dream you had last night. There are some things we can certainly glean, because the interpretation is given in the text. But we should not expect perfect clarity. Here is the point: the clarity around future things revealed in the Scriptures is about as clear as the dream you had last night.

There is a doctrine called the perspicuity of Scripture—perspicuity is just a big word for clarity. The doctrine teaches that the Bible is clear as it relates to the gospel message; the smallest children can understand it. We explained the truths of the gospel to our own kids at three years old. But when you come to passages like Daniel 7, they are far from clear. That means when we study these things and interact with other Christians about them, we must do so carefully, prayerfully, and—this one is really important—humbly. The probability that we are entirely right about our opinions, ideas, and speculations is pretty low. So we cannot divide over things that are unclear and not doctrinally significant—secondary issues. I have good friends, pastors and Bible teachers, with whom I disagree on these interpretations. We're still friends, and when we get to heaven they will realize they were wrong. I'm okay with that.

The Predictive Power of Scripture

As unclear as the future is, the Bible does have great things to say about it, and it is quite good in its predictive power. The things God reveals to Daniel are so specific that skeptics question whether Daniel really wrote them in the 6th century BC. They argue the book must have been written in the second or third century BC, after the events took place. But the evidence supports the early dating—that Daniel wrote these things while in exile in Babylon—and it reveals the Bible's awesome predictive power.

In Isaiah 66 God predicted that a nation would be born in one day. On May 14, 1948, the modern state of Israel became a nation in one day, in fulfillment of that word. These predictive passages reveal the divine fingerprints in our world—clues God leaves to announce Himself as the one who was, and is, and is to come. In Isaiah 40–45 God even says, in effect, "I am the only God able to tell you the end of the thing before it happens. Test Me in this."

Everyone Has an Eschatology

Everybody you know—whether they read the Bible or go to church or not—has an eschatology, an apocalyptic Armageddon scenario running in their mind. It may be shaped by Daniel 7, Matthew 24, or Revelation, or it may be a secular Western perspective. These end-time themes drive our summer blockbusters. Every Marvel movie is an apocalyptic drama posing an end-time scenario, and the through-line is always the hope of a deliverer who comes to save in the midst of the Armageddon. Every culture has that.

Forty years ago it was Russian nukes—that inspired things like Red Dawn. In the early 2000s it was Islam. Today it's aliens, asteroids, AI, and climate change. When your co-worker shares the doom they fear, you may think it's insane fiction—and to them, your facts seem like fiction. To them, their scenario is crucially important. So be compassionate when these conversations come up. And remember: you'd better have a better story.

Very Few Eschatologies Bring Peace

Here is point two: everyone has an eschatology, and very few bring any peace, hope, and joy. If you are a Christian, your view of the future should bring peace, hope, and joy. If your view of what is coming causes you anxiety—and makes everyone you talk to fearful—you may need to re-examine your view in light of Scripture, because the apocalypsis in Scripture is one that brings hope. That is the underlying current of the apocalyptic genre: to give the people of God hope in the midst of trial and tribulation.

So when a friend shares their freaked-out end-time scenario, here's what I think you should tell them: "It's much worse than you think." When they ask what you mean, tell them the truth. Hebrews 10 says that all the person without Christ has to look forward to is "a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation." That should cause the person who does not know Christ to be fearful, because the optimism I have is found only in Jesus. The Book of Revelation is the revelation of Jesus Christ, and it ultimately reveals that He will come again to bring His kingdom and His righteous reign, and He will wipe away every tear—no more sickness, sorrow, or death. That is the joyful, optimistic vision that brings hope. You have to have a better story, and the story we find here is a better story.

The Vision of the Four Beasts

Daniel 7:1 gives us a temporal marker. The storyline has jumped backward. Chapters 1–6 are chronological, running from about 605 BC, when Daniel came to Babylon, to about 539 BC, when the Medo-Persian Empire released Israel. At chapter 7 Daniel jumps back to the first year of Belshazzar—about 553 BC. Daniel is somewhere in his 60s. He has a dream and writes down the main facts.

He sees the four winds of heaven stirring up the Great Sea, and four great beasts come up from it, each different. The first is like a lion with eagle's wings. The second is like a bear, raised up on one side, with three ribs in its mouth, told to "arise, devour much flesh." The third is like a leopard with four wings and four heads, given dominion. Then comes a fourth beast—dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong, with huge iron teeth, devouring and trampling. It has ten horns, and among them rises a little eleventh horn with eyes like a man and a mouth speaking pompous words.

Then the scene shifts to heaven: thrones are set, and the Ancient of Days is seated, His garment white as snow, His throne aflame, ten thousand times ten thousand standing before Him. The court is seated and the books are opened. The fourth beast is slain and given to the burning flame. And "One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven"—put a star next to that verse—is brought before the Ancient of Days and given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that shall not pass away. No wonder verse 15 says Daniel was grieved and troubled.

Asking the One Who Inspired It

Follow Daniel's lead. In verse 16 he comes near to one who stood by—some angelic watcher in the dream—and asks the truth of all this. If you come to a passage that troubles you and you wonder what on earth it means, you're in good company. It is wise to ask the One who inspired the Scriptures to help you comprehend them. The psalmist prays, "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things from Your word." Not a week goes by in my study that I don't pray, "God, help me understand what these things mean."

Apocalyptic literature is filled with symbols hard to comprehend if they stand alone. So we interpret Scripture with Scripture, because many symbols are explained elsewhere. Other literature from that same period helps too. The troubled, chaotic sea is the chaotic world in which we live—imagery seen in many neo-Babylonian pieces. And out of that chaos arise these beasts, often carrying imagery associated with the nations of the time. The lion with wings appears on the walls of Babylon, on the Ishtar gate established by Nebuchadnezzar while Daniel was there.

The General, Not Always the Specific

When we study these things, we often understand only the general, not the specific sense. The fuller understanding frequently becomes clear only after the fact. Commentaries written before May 14, 1948, read differently than those written after. In John 2 Jesus said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," and John tells us they did not understand until after He rose from the dead. So we should hold our interpretations lightly, with a humble heart. Point three: the future is not as fixed and certain as we might imagine or interpret it to be. If you really could tell the future, you'd drive a much nicer car. We see dimly for now; we know in part.

In the End, God Wins

What is the general sense? Verse 17: "Those great beasts, which are four, are four kings which arise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever." Here it is—the heart of it. The world will be chaotic; the beasts will go around in beast mode causing chaos. But the end of all things is this: the saints of the Most High will receive and possess the kingdom forever.

Point four: in the end, God wins and reigns, and we receive and possess the kingdom forever. That is the ultimate story that gives us peace, hope, and joy even in uncertain and tumultuous times. The last few years have been a little uncertain—anybody notice? And I've discovered that a lot of Christians have far less hope than they should. They're panicky and freaked out, as if the end of the world has come. Have you read the story? In the end God wins and reigns, and we possess the kingdom forever. The question is: do you actually believe that? If you do, it will give you hope in uncertain times—just as it did for Israel in Babylon, and a few hundred years later under the Greek Empire and the raving lunatic Antiochus Epiphanes, whom we'll discuss next week.

The Faithful Are Not Always Spared

This is an awesomely evangelistic reality. If you live as though it's true, your friends without hope will see a steady consistency in the storm and have to admit they don't have it. Your belief affects your behavior. Sadly, I've watched the behavior of many Christians change so much in recent years that they've abandoned the belief they once held to grab a new one. Many have moved away from the futurist hope found in Scripture toward a postmillennial mindset that says it's all on us—we have to fix it, we have to seize the levers of power. If you've met someone with a Christian nationalistic mindset, they've shifted their beliefs in light of the world's circumstances in a way I don't think is healthy. I have close friends, Calvary Chapel pastors, who've abandoned that hope. You should be highly suspect of that; I don't find it in the New Testament.

The first six chapters teach us something we have a hard time with: the faithful remnant of God does not always escape tribulation. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not escape the fiery furnace; Daniel did not escape the lion's den. But God protected them as they went through. In American Christian culture we assume we, the faithful, will never have to go through any of that. Yet most of the world's Christians, throughout all of history, have gone through the fire and the lion's den. Their hope was this: in the end God wins and reigns, and even though we die in this world, we will rise to newness of life with Him.

A Set and Established Time

Daniel needed more than the general outline. In verse 19 he wishes to know about the fourth beast, exceedingly dreadful, with iron teeth, ten horns, and the one horn with eyes and a pompous mouth—the horn that "was making war against the saints, and prevailing against them." Daniel is grieved because it seems God's people are being destroyed.

This dream connects to Nebuchadnezzar's dream in chapter 2—the same basic outline with different imagery. Four kingdoms; one like the Son of Man, the Stone cut without hands, who destroys the fourth kingdom. But note the first word of verse 22: "until." The beast prevails until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was made in favor of the saints, and the time came for them to possess the kingdom. There is a set time in God's calendar. Jesus' followers asked, "Will You now restore the kingdom?" and He said, "Of the times and seasons you do not know, but My Father knows."

The angel explains the fourth kingdom in verses 23–25: different from all the others, devouring the whole earth, with ten kings and another arising after them who speaks pompous words against the Most High and persecutes the saints, and "the saints shall be given into his hand for a time and times and half a time." You can read volumes claiming perfect clarity on every detail, and they're all wrong. I know the general sense: after Babylon (the first beast), Medo-Persia (the second), and Greece (the third) comes the Roman kingdom—a kingdom that extends throughout the entire world, as it has for two thousand years. At some point someone from that kingdom will rule and destroy God's people, but there is a time coming when that one will be destroyed.

The Kingdom Given to the Saints

Point five: the beasts of the earth will have their way with the saints of God for a set and established time—and God knows when that is. The fourth beast will seem to prevail against God's people for "a time and times and half a time." But verse 26: "the court shall be seated, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and destroy it forever. Then the kingdom and dominion... shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him."

When will we see the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven to bring His kingdom? I don't exactly know. But He is promised to come. To Him will be given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve.

Jesus, the Son of Man

On the morning before His crucifixion, Jesus stood before a council seeking to condemn Him. The high priest said, "I put You under oath before the living God: tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God." Does this sound familiar? Jesus answered, "It is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven." He was claiming to be the Son of Man of Daniel 7. The high priest tore his clothes and cried, "He has spoken blasphemy!" and they answered, "He is deserving of death." Jesus is the Son of Man.

When will He come? Ephesians 1 speaks of "the dispensation of the fullness of times"—when the Father says now is the time. Apparently He hasn't said so yet, because we're still here. So what next? We are here until we finish the work He's given us: "Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Until He Comes

On the night before He was crucified, Jesus took bread and said, "This is My body, which is broken for you." He took the cup and said, "This is the blood of the New Covenant; this do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me." Then He said something so important: "I will not drink of the fruit of this vine from now until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom."

The last thing He left with His disciples was not, "Tomorrow will be horrible and it will look like we lost." It was, "I'm not going to drink with you again until I see you anew in My Father's kingdom." So for two thousand years the church has partaken of the bread and the cup, proclaiming the Lord's death until He comes again—taking it in joyful anticipation of the day when we'll drink it anew with Him. And let me tell you, the grape juice is going to be a lot better then.

Closing Prayer

Father, I pray that You would help us to rejoice in joyful anticipation of what is coming, even though we might endure difficulty in this life, in the sea of the chaos of this world as the beasts come. We are reminded that You are the King of kings and Lord of lords, and You reign. Help us to remember that. Help our countenance to display the joy of that in our behavior—the peace and rest and hope of that. We pray in Jesus' name. This is not a somber thing; we remember His death and burial, but we remember that He rose from the dead and will come again, and we will drink anew with Him in the kingdom. Amen. Let's rejoice.