0:00 All right, y'all, the very popular and flashy and highly educational Prophecy 101 class will begin today. We're looking at Daniel chapter 2 and the vision that he had, or the vision that the king had. And then we may dip into Daniel chapter 7, where I think the images are clearly repeated. And this will, I think this should impact how we view certain things in the Revelation. Hopefully we'll get to that as well. So let's pray. Father, my desire tonight is that you would make me as clear as possible.
0:54 I don't want to muddy the waters, but I want to filter them and drink the pure water. And we live among a people, we live in a time in which these things are so often distorted and corrupted. I pray that you would help us to just drink the pure water tonight in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so in Daniel chapter 2, you know the story. The king of Babylon had a dream that frightened them. And Daniel and his friends were in Babylon. I believe they were in the first group of deportees from Jerusalem to Babylon. Remember the fall of Jerusalem happened in three stages over the course of a couple of decades.
1:41 In the sixth century BC. And I believe Daniel and his friends went in the first wave of captives. And for instance, then I think that Ezekiel might have gone in the first or second. And Jeremiah was there for the first, but he, or he was actually there for all three, is my thinking. But he was never taken. So this is all very interesting. The king has a dream, the king of Babylon. And he, I think he must have, I'm reading between the lines, but he had a court, a king's court filled with wise men and people who claim supernatural powers and all of that.
2:27 That were, he's supporting them. He's feeding them from day to day. And I think he must have kind of gotten to the point where he was thinking, these guys are just a waste of my money. They don't do anything for me. And so we remember his challenge to them, that they had to tell him the interpretation of his dream without him telling them what the dream was. They had to tell both of those things. And so they were just headed for slaughter, all of them, until God revealed the dream to Daniel after Daniel and his friends had prayed earnestly about it. And so we'll pick that up in verse 31 of Daniel chapter 2. You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great image or statue, I think.
3:19 Yeah, or statue. That image, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was rising up in front of you and its appearance was awesome. The head of that image was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands. And it struck the image on the feet of iron and clay and crushed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors.
4:07 And the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This was the dream. Now we will say its interpretation before the king. Dang, I just realized I brought the wrong Bible. I brought the one that doesn't have my notes in it. But, all right, so I'm going to, I will probably wind up missing some of these dates. I have all the dates written down that I was going to share with you. Hold on just a second. Let me see if I can find it real fast.
4:58 Maybe not. All right. So, in the providence of God, I don't have my notes with me. But that is okay. I will just go, we'll talk more broadly than I had intended, which is good. We only have an hour. So, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream where he sees a great statue. And, in my mind, I imagine it being hundreds of feet tall or whatever. And, you heard the description, the head of gold, the shoulders and chest of silver, midsection of bronze.
5:48 And then, iron for the legs. And, eventually, getting down to the toes, there were a mixture of clay and iron. Right? Verse 36, this was the dream, and now we will say its interpretation before the king. You, O king, are the king of kings to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength, and the glory. Now, this is not prophetically relevant, but I just want you to note what the spiritual title for Nebuchadnezzar was right there. He's called the king of kings.
6:34 Later on, of course, Jesus will be called the king of kings and the lord of lords. That will be the name that he writes upon himself. He is the king, the king of kings. The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our lord and Christ. He is king over kings. It's not merely a religious title. It wasn't a religious title when it's used here. Speaking of Nebuchadnezzar, he's talking about the fact that Nebuchadnezzar is a king who actually has other kings under him that regard him as their king. So, it's the definition of an empire is what we're talking about here, where one king rules a bunch of different countries.
7:21 So, that's interesting then, when Jesus is referred to in that same way. It's not a churchy title. It's not, when we say king of kings, we're not just talking about his rule within my own personal heart. We're talking about his authority over all things. And, although the Bible doesn't use the word empire so much, I think it's right to talk about the fact that God intends the rule of Christ to be a world-dominating empire. That's maybe language that we don't use for it very much. Okay, so, the reason you are the king of kings is because the God of heaven has given you these things.
8:11 The kingdom, the power, the strength, and the glory. So, verse 38, Wherever the sons of men inhabit, or the beasts of the field, or the birds of the sky, he has given them into your hand, and has made you rule with power over them all. You are the head of gold. So, this is not a vision for the future, a far-flung future. It begins in the present, right? We shouldn't be scanning the headlines to see if somebody's making a statue like this somewhere, or has plans to build it. And if our dispensationalist friends came up with something like that, we should just kind of shake our heads and pat them a little bit. I wouldn't put it past them.
9:00 Okay, verse 39, After you, there will arise another kingdom inferior to you, and then another third kingdom of bronze, which will rule with power over all the earth. Now, we know from historical fact, we understand which kingdoms these were. They really did come in succession. Babylon was sitting pretty at one point until the Medes and Persians came and took them out. And that's not speculation. That's a matter of historical record. This actually did happen. Babylon, I've seen an illustration online. I'm sure you can find it at YouTube. It's kind of a, just a graphic showing on a map the area that was controlled by Babylon.
9:49 And it's a pretty large area there in the Middle East. But it's certainly not encompassing the globe. Or the flat dish of the earth. It's not, it's not encompassing the globe. It's a, I don't know that it's much bigger, or if it would even be bigger than the land in Texas. It's a respectable piece of land, bigger than all the nations that are there. But to our eyes, it's probably not all that huge. Medo-Persia comes along and becomes the kingdom after Babylon. And that territory expands a little bit. And then Alexander the Great comes along.
10:35 And the Greeks take over from the Medes and Persians. And that territory expands quite a bit. And then along come the Caesars of Rome. Rome displaces Greece. And now this territory just kind of explodes and encompasses all of Europe. All the way up into England. So pretty, pretty amazing to see that happen. But the, the thing for you to keep in mind as we work through the rest of the Bible prophetically. Is that none of these kingdoms inhabited the whole globe. When the scripture talks about these things, it uses that word earth. But it generally refers to the known earth at that time.
11:22 What the people who were living would have called the inhabited world. And they didn't, I'm not convinced they knew about some of the far-flung lands. Although they may have. I believe that, for instance, I believe Solomon was probably visited by emissaries from China and India and stuff like that. So they had some knowledge. But for their purposes, this is the earth. Just this territory that we're living in here. So in verse 39, there will arise another kingdom inferior to you. That's the kingdom of the Medes and Persians. This is the kingdom that we find Esther dealing with.
12:08 And this is the kingdom that we will see later in the book of Daniel. We actually see the deposing of Babylon taking place. Remember the story of Darius. Darius came on this night. Darius the Mede came and deposed the son of Nebuchadnezzar. And it was with the handwriting on the wall and stuff. You've been weighed in the balances and found wanting. And your kingdom is numbered. It's taken from you tonight. And it was. So that was the beginning of Medo-Persian rule. At least over the Babylonian province or what became that.
12:54 So the Babylonians come next. Then in verse 39, another third kingdom of bronze. So Medo-Persia is symbolized by silver. The midsection and thighs are made of bronze. And this is the kingdom of Greece. And again, we will see a little bit later some pretty amazing detail about that. That Greece would come along and do great things. And Alexander the Great really was a big deal. He was a handful to have to deal with. In verse 40, there will be a fourth kingdom.
13:43 As strong as iron and as much as iron crushes and shatters all things. So like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these in pieces. All those previous kingdoms would be trampled underfoot by what Rome would do. Now, in that you saw the feet and toes partly of potter's clay and partly of iron. It will be a divided kingdom, but it will have in it the toughness of iron. In as much as you saw the iron mixed with common clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay. So some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be bitter. And in that you... Brittle, not bitter. And in that you saw the iron mixed with common clay.
14:30 They will not combine with one another in the seat of men. But they will cling to one another even as iron does not combine with clay. Alright, so Rome is the iron legs. And at the end of the iron legs, you have partly iron and partly clay toes. And I'm of the opinion that this... Well, what I want you to see first. What I want you to notice, it's obvious. But let's keep this in mind as we look at other things. If you're looking at that statue, you're looking at centuries that are pictured in that statue. You're looking at about a thousand years. It winds up being, I think, or maybe more than a thousand years.
15:18 You're looking at more than a thousand years of history just in that picture of the statue there. I may be wrong about that, more than a thousand. But I'm thinking about the fact that... I think that the ten toes then, it becomes something different. It's iron and clay mixed together. And just historically, as Rome fell, what happened was that this huge unified kingdom was split, especially in Europe. And it became divvied out to ten kings in Europe. They were, generally speaking, the leaders of what the Romans called the barbarian tribes.
16:03 And so eventually, this centralized Roman power broke down, at least in the area of concern here, and was then ruled by ten kings. And there was something that was strong about them and something that was brittle. And I think there's probably different ways you could come up with what that means. Just in terms of, by that time, Christianity had been the official religion of the empire for quite a while. Rome didn't really fully dissolve until the middle of the 5th century. But at the beginning of the 4th century, about 313 or so, that's when the last persecution of Christians ended,
16:50 and was ended by Constantine, supposedly the first. He at least confessed Christ at the time. I don't know what his heart was or anything like that. But he was the first Christian emperor. And he made Christianity the religion of the empire. So now in Rome, you have what used to be this thing where you could believe whatever you want to, as long as you also agreed that Caesar was God and stuff like that. So you offer your pinch of incense to the genius of the empire, and you were good. And Rome, just almost by force, by threat of violence, was able to hold together diverse religious and cultural things that happened throughout its kingdom.
17:41 But at the end, now you get Christianity introduced. Now you have, whether Constantine was really saved or not, now you do have multitudes of genuine believers in Christ in the empire. And that's just going to cause, Jesus said it would bring a sword and not unity. And so you can see how the seeds of division were sown even by the gospel there. And where these disparate parts may have been held together by threat of violence and stuff, now that they're no longer under the rule of the emperor like they were before, now it's much harder to keep these people focused on the same goals and stuff like that. Does that make sense to you?
18:34 So in verse 44, it says, In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will cause a kingdom to rise up, which will never be destroyed. In the picture, in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, this was a stone cut without hands, made without hands. And it strikes the statue and smashes it all basically into powder and everything blows away. And the stone itself then begins to rise and grow and fill the whole earth. Even the people who basically would agree with what I've just said about the historical succession of these four kingdoms, and there would be a lot. This was the universal, the one interpretation of this passage during the Protestant Reformation.
19:30 And everybody knew we're talking about this historical succession of kingdoms. And in the days of the Roman Empire, God took a kingdom. He brought a kingdom made without hands. And as we've seen a little bit already in the book of Hebrews, that's a code term that has to do with the fact that it doesn't come from earth. It's not made by men, but it comes directly from heaven. So this is kind of where that phrase comes from. It's God doing a thing without the aid of human hands. His hands are the ones that cut out this kingdom. And he made this. And so when Daniel describes it, he says,
20:16 In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will cause a kingdom to rise up, which will never be destroyed. And that kingdom will not be left for another people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms. But it will itself stand forever. Inasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what will happen in the future. So the dream is certain and its interpretation is trustworthy. Okay, so if we agree that that's the historical kind of interpretation of the way these four kingdoms ran in succession, then I think we have to include a fifth kingdom.
21:02 And that's the kingdom of Christ coming in in the days of the Roman Empire. And actually, I think causing its end. And that was, in fact, in history what happened. But what a lot of people don't pay attention to is the fact that that stone grows. And it fills the whole earth. It's not like the stone stays by itself and other things happen around it. And that's not what happens. And like with these four kingdoms, what you saw was in history, as soon as one kingdom took over for another kingdom, it was standing on its shoulders and kind of historically speaking, it was making use of whatever advances had been made by that kingdom.
21:51 It's ruling the place now. And some of it, it's taking advantage of the things that had gone before it. And what Daniel has said here is that that will never be the way it is with this fifth kingdom. Nobody's going to come stand on the ruins of it. It's never going to die. And for me, that's part of where my post-millennialism comes from. And I believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ will have observable victory in time and history. Isaiah the prophet said it this way, that of the increase of his kingdom and of peace, there will be no end. I think we're seeing that represented visually. The mountain grows and fills the whole earth,
22:36 which is easier to do if the earth is a dish and not a globe. But that's the picture that's being given there. Any questions about this? Or how does this make you think? Or does it do anything for you? How do the futurists deal with that stone? [Question unclear.] Postpone? Yeah, definitely to postpone it. The typical dispensational tactic in this passage is to just insert thousands of years in the fourth kingdom. You know, somewhere between the knees and the toes, they stick a few thousand years in there.
23:23 And that's the time that we're living in now. And so they really do expect that these ten kingdoms will be future kingdoms and not past ones. And my guess is, I haven't looked at what they've said in a while, but my guess is that they would submit that the stone that comes and smashes it is the second coming of Christ and not the first. And so the kingdom of God comes and interrupts what the bad guys are doing there. Like the future Roman Empire? Yeah. Yeah, that's the big thing. They really do believe that the Roman Empire has to be there. The reborn, the renewed Roman Empire. I think in order to say that, you almost have to say, if you're going to be consistent with the vision,
24:10 you have to say that the Roman Empire has never ceased. And I just don't see how you look at the politics of the world right now and come to that conclusion. You would have to be saying that the Roman Empire can change its location. It can change its shape. It can change what it's called. It can be ruled from other places. At some point, it becomes ridiculous that the Roman Empire either has to be revived or you have to say it's still here. It can change its shape. It can change its shape. You can hold that vision if you want to. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, though. Let's turn real fast to Daniel chapter 7 then.
25:05 Daniel chapter 7 in verse 1. Daniel chapter 7 in verse 1. I kept looking until its wings were plucked, and it was lifted up from the ground and was made to stand on two feet like a man, and a heart of man was given to it. So we're going to see four beasts come together here up out of the sea. Note that.
25:58 They're coming up out of the sea, not out of the land. And, of course, my understanding, I'm not alone in this at all. It's pretty standard interpretation. I think these four beasts are the exact same as the four sections of the statue here, just told in different ways. And so that would mean that this first beast that is like a lion and had the wings of an eagle is like the gold section of the statue. So the first king who is golden and superior to all the others in some way, he is now represented by the king of beasts. Like he's a lion and he's got the wings of an eagle, which some would say is like the king of the birds or something like that.
26:47 But anyway, it probably means he's swift. He's able to go where he needs to go and do what he needs to do and nothing stops him. But I really think that what it says in the last half of the verse there may be a reference to whatever what also happened in Daniel chapter 3 when Nebuchadnezzar kind of went momentarily crazy. He had a breakdown and he became like a beast. But then at some point God restored him and after he was restored, I think we'll see Nebuchadnezzar in heaven. I think he was his heart was changed. He was a worshiper of the true God. And here we see in verse 4, its wings were plucked. I kind of think maybe that's what it has reference to.
27:34 This fall of Nebuchadnezzar into madness for a time. It was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man. To me that may have to do with the restoration of Nebuchadnezzar after his craziness. The heart of a man was given to it. But you know the story of Nebuchadnezzar's fall and restoration. I kind of see it's maybe represented in there. Behold, in verse 5, another beast, a second one in the likeness of a bear. And it was raised up on one side and three ribs were in its mouth between its teeth. And thus they said to it, arise, devour much meat.
28:21 One of my notes that I had was the actual three ribs that were in its mouth. The three more countries that Nebuchadnezzar had not conquered. But the Medes and Persians did. They took these three countries. And I don't want to guess. I think I remember seeing what the countries were. But I don't want to say I'm wrong. But these are historical things that actually happened. And the three ribs represent these three defeated countries. And this beast would be the Medo-Persian Empire. Then verse 6, after this, I kept looking. And behold, another one like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird. The beast also had four heads.
29:07 And dominion was given to it. This again is a symbol of ancient Greece headed by Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great's great innovation was just his focus on being able to get there faster than the other guy got there. And to bring more people with you than he was able to bring. So it's an appropriate symbol to show him. Pictured as a leopard. The fast cat that gets where it wants to go very quickly. Not with two wings, but it's with four. Which doubles its swiftness or whatever. But that's the image. It's swift. And it gets where it needs to be. And the beast had four heads. And dominion was given to it.
29:53 Now, after the death of Alexander, the Greek Empire didn't split apart. But it did have four heads instead of one emperor. And these, one of them is, you've heard of Ptolemaic Egypt. Ptolemae was the Greek name of the man who was given authority over the region of Egypt. And so the Ptolemaes ruled for however long, a few hundred years in Egypt. And that was one. Another is, I shouldn't even try to come up with it. I didn't intend to take a history quiz or impose one on myself when I was here. But anyway, I just want to assure you, this is another matter of historical record.
30:48 That Greece really was ruled this way by four authorities and not by a single one. Okay, so verse 7. After this, I kept looking in the night visions. And behold, a fourth beast, fearsome and terrifying and extraordinarily strong. And it had large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet. And it was different from all the beasts that were before it. And it had ten horns. Now, I think this is simply a description of the same thing that we had talked about. The overwhelming military power of Rome is described here. But then, ending in the toes.
31:34 Here it has it ending in ten horns. And horns in prophetic literature. Heads and horns and crowns are always kind of symbolic of kings and kingdoms. Centers of power. Mountains as well. I can get thrown into that mix of terminology and the symbolism. So, it had ten horns. My contention is that's the ten horns. The ten kings at the end of the Roman Empire. Like the ten toes. Verse 8. I'm going to open a can of worms here. While I was contemplating the horns, behold, another horn, a little horn, came up among them. And three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it.
32:20 And behold, this horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great boasts. Historically speaking, Protestants have seen this pretty unified. They believe that this has reference to the fact that the papal system, Roman Catholic power, rose pretty seamlessly from the dissolution of the Roman Empire. When Rome fell, then came the one that the Protestants have always called the Antichrist, the papal office. And I think that's what's being talked about here. So, the office of the Pope, according to that, according to this interpretation, would be this little horn that rises up.
33:05 And I could name for you the three horns that it plucked up and overthrew if I had my notes, but I don't have them. Again, it's just a, I didn't come up with this. It's a matter of historical record. And so, I believe the emperors almost seamlessly became popes at some point in history. The last emperor handed his power to the first bishop of Rome who had that kind of political power to do all those things. There were popes before that, of course. But when Rome just dissolved and called it quits, suddenly the bishop of Rome was invested with a great deal of power that he would never have had otherwise.
33:50 Which is exactly what men like Irenaeus and Tertullian predicted was going to happen. They really believed that when the Roman Empire was taken out of the way, this man of sin would rise up immediately. And so, that's interesting. That's the way that works. And it's a little horn. It doesn't look super impressive as far as the kings of the earth go. It's a little horn, but it's a mouth speaking great boasts. And this is also something that you can just go look up. Just look up the titles by which the Pope is called or has historically been called. Pontificus Maximus. So, that's actually the title that the Romans used to speak of their emperor.
34:40 It's not a religious term. It has to do with the power of the emperor. And, you know, instead of wearing a single crown like an earthly king, he wore a triple crown that showed he's the ruler of heaven and earth and hell and just stuff like that. But, famously, his throne, the Pope's throne had in Rome the Latin inscription. Now, I'm trying to do this without it. Vicarius Filii Dei. And it's a Latin inscription that means in place of the Son of God or instead of the Son of God. And, by the way, for you prophecy buffs, Latin, you know, all the letters are numbers.
35:29 Vicarius Filii Dei. When you add it up, it's 666. So, ooh, that's very scary. Any questions about this? I really am sorry. I didn't. Brought the wrong Bible with me. I'll be beating myself up all week about it. There's a reason I didn't memorize the numbers and the names because I had the notes right in front of me. So, you were saying dispensations would agree mostly with what you're saying. It would just be that transitional last piece of it that they'd say, oh, no, no, that's so. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I think if you picked up like a dispensational commentary of Daniel, which I have not done,
36:18 but I believe that they will mostly agree with the four kingdoms interpretation. I don't think anybody really disputes that. The prophecies were so specific and made so much obvious sense in the light of how things turned out that I don't think there's really been much of an argument with the position that I've laid out here. But, like John said, they have to find a way to sneak in a couple thousand years so they can put everything into the future at the end of history. And so, this 666 then was also referred to Revelation. Yeah. That's already passed. Part of this guy's rule, the beast.
37:03 Oh, well, of course, that depends on the scheme of interpretation that you hold to in Revelation. But, yeah, I think, like, for instance, the real hardcore Protestants who believe that the Pope today is still the Antichrist and the office of the Pope is Antichrist, which was actually written into the Protestant Confession of Faith, the Westminster Confession. And it's right there. And they believe the Pope is the man of sin, this Antichrist. And they would certainly say that, yeah, you shouldn't be looking forward to that number. But also, Preterists who believe that Nero was the Antichrist or this beast figure, they believe Nero was this man of sin.
37:50 And they have a way of attaching 666 to him so that it applies to him. And they would also say it's passed. All right. So, those two Protestant versions of or approaches to the prophecy would both wind up doing what you've said. So, do you think there's still a possibility that the government, the oligarchy, would still try to mark people in order to control them, their buying and selling and stuff? Yeah. This could be something that's repeated over the years. It could be. But if it is repeated, I don't think it necessarily is repeating prophecy so much.
38:36 It's just a thing that really could happen. It could still obviously happen. They'll take it out of the Bible and go, oh, this, we need to do this. Right. And that's what it feels like sometimes. Yeah, right. You hear people talking about, like, the COVID. Yeah. The shot or. Passport. Oh, yeah. You couldn't do anything. And they weren't going to let people buy anything. Right. You had to get the show at the register. Well, if we go to all digital currency, like, I think the whole world is moving in that direction. Now you're not going to know. You're actually going to have governments in charge at some point of what you can actually buy and can't and stuff like that. So all these things can happen. What's that? Yeah.
39:22 They kind of already do that. Yeah. But the answer may be, the answer may very well be what you were mentioning, just that these things repeat. And these are concepts that were being talked, that were being told about in the Revelation. We see it. We see that it happened to the first century believers before 70 AD. And it happened with the 50 million maybe martyrs during the Protestant era or the medieval time. And we shouldn't be shocked if we see something like that happen again. However, I still believe that the mountain keeps growing. It doesn't shrink. It doesn't shrink. And so I think that however terrible these things are, I think they, can I say, I think they, we can expect them to keep happening,
40:15 but I don't think they will have as lasting or as prominent an effect as what they had in the past. I think they, as they repeat, we wind up beating the bad guys better than we did before or something like that. So I'd like you to turn with me now to Revelation chapter 13. Revelation 13. So Revelation 13 in verse 3 or verse 1.
41:02 1. The dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. In chapter 12, we learn that the dragon is a symbol of Satan, the devil. Verse 2. Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads. And on his horns were ten diadems or crowns. And on his heads were blasphemous names. And the beast which I saw was like a leopard. And his feet were like those of a bear. And his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. So you see the leopard and the bear and the lion.
41:49 Remember the lion was Babylon. The bear was Medo-Persia. And the leopard was symbolic of Greece. So now you have this. John is now seeing one beast rise up with kind of these different characteristics kind of smushed together. What had been described separately is now coming together as one beast here. Which tells you, it seems to me, it's obvious where these symbols are coming from. You know, it's three specific animals. It's three animals from Daniel 7. It's not three random animals pulled together. These are coming from a specific place, from Daniel 7. And I think everybody across the spectrum, there's general agreement about what those things were.
42:40 They were different, successive, world-conquering empires. And I stress that because our dispensationalist friends and friendly opponents, they think this is symbolizing one man. You know, they think the beast of Revelation is a guy. It's one dude. And, uh... That's what all the movies show. Right. And, uh... I don't know how you get that if you're being... Right. If you... Yeah. If you see... If you see what Daniel has described, and then you see this vision, and you recognize that,
43:28 oh, clearly that comes from here. Why do you not learn the lesson that Daniel was teaching? That these are... These are empires rising here. Why do you insist on saying this is a single man? I just think it's a violation. To me, it makes sense... Did you read Daniel before you started writing your book on Revelation? What happened here? The dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. In verse 3, I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain fatally. And his fatal wound was healed. And the whole earth marveled and followed after the beast.
44:15 So, remember, according to the dispensational story, this means that the Antichrist, the one man, the beast, is going to rise up. He'll be the leader of the whole world. The one world ruler. Probably gets shot or something in the head. Probably pronounced dead or something. But then he'll come back to life. And it will result in him being worshipped all over the world. But again, we're not talking about one man. We're talking about a beast, again, that rises out of the sea, just like they came out of the sea in Daniel. The sea generally being a symbol of pagan chaos and Gentile worship and stuff like that. So, I believe that this is, it's talking about a loss of authority when it talks about the fatal head wound.
45:06 I think it's talking about undergoing such political demise that nobody thinks you can ever come back from that. But then the guy did, then the power does continue. And there are Protestant commentators who would say that this represents, the fatal head wound is the Reformation itself. When the political authority of the Pope was eventually smashed and stripped. And after the Reformation, after all the writings that were done by the leaders of the Reformation, and after those writings were hardly even answered, except by violence from Rome,
45:55 it might be fair to ask, how has Rome continued to persist up until now? It should have died. But it hasn't died. It does exist as a minimal shadow of its former self. When kings shook and trembled at every letter they received from the Pope or whatever, they were able to tell kings to send their armies to battle and tell kings to execute the Protestants and stuff like that. That just simply can't be done anymore. If you read the arguments of the Reformers against Rome, there's no coming back from those arguments. They're rock solid.
46:42 There's no way Rome should survive, but it does. There was given to him a mouth speaking great boasts, like I am the vicar of Christ. And blasphemies and authority to act for 42 months was given to him. Now, generally, the way classical Protestant interpreters have seen that is 42 months being 42 times 30, 30 days in a month. And then they employ what's called a year for a day principle, where every day in the prophecy stands for a year of physical time. And I can see where you get that from. I can see how it's worked out.
47:28 It's certainly a thing in the book of Daniel, for sure. There's 70 weeks that are organized on that principle. But I'm not sure you can just take that and go right into applying it wherever you see a list of days. And that's why I have a lot of respect for the classical Protestant interpretation. But I also see the holes and I don't feel bound by it. But, man, it fits here. It was given him authority in verse 7 to make war with the saints and to overcome them. And authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him.
48:16 That's not an unfair description of the authority of the Pope during the Middle Ages. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world. In the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain. If anyone who has an ear, let him hear. So, that's the first beast of the Revelation. Then we get to the second beast. But the reason we're here in the first place is I just wanted to alert you to where some of these symbols are coming from. They're not coming from mysteries behind the veil. They're things that have already been done. They're things that have already happened. And I think we can take a lot of the scariness out of them by simply recognizing that.
49:11 So, in verse 11, I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. He doesn't come up out of the sea. This is different. And I think a lot of commentators have understood if the sea represents Gentile, pagan, ungodly systems and thought patterns. Then the earth or the land in Greek, especially the land is G-E, gē. Is that about right? And it has specifically to do with the promised land, the land of Israel. And so, there's some sense in which the second beast is rising up, not geographically, but out of that milieu of scriptural thought as opposed to pagan thought.
49:59 It's surely a different kind of beast. He's coming up out of the earth. And he had two horns like a lamb and he was speaking as a dragon. Horns like a lamb. That's kind of an odd verse or an odd expression. I guess a lamb can have horns, but I think we call him a ram at that time. Just kind of an odd way of saying it. He was speaking as a dragon. This is, to me, I think it's very symbolic of, for instance, the religious establishment that Christ walked into. The Pharisees and the Sadducees and their whole system, they were meant to look like a lamb. They looked religious and sanctified and they looked holy, but their mouth spewed forth the words of the dragon instead.
50:53 So, he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence and he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed. And he does great signs so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. Okay. I can see if we're going with the preterist idea that this has to do with first century Hebrewism or Judaism. They did encourage, basically, worship of the first beast. If the first beast is Rome, then it does work to have the second beast be the religious establishment in Judea at the time.
51:41 They're urging their people to be obedient and not cause trouble. Don't rock the boat with Rome and stuff like that. You can kind of see him advocating for just going along to get along. In fact, the Sadducees formed as a result of their belief that the Roman Empire was basically the Messiah that they had been waiting for. The Greeks came and treated the Hebrews terribly and really just vicious tyranny. Rome came and changed all that and brought peace and delivered them. And the Sadducees, especially as a sect, rose up kind of based on the belief that God has sent Rome to be our savior. And so you can see how maybe that's being represented in what's being said here.
52:35 Okay, so he's telling those who dwell on the earth in verse 14 to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life. Of course, our Protestant classic brothers would contend the wound of the sword is the wound of the word of God administered to the head of the papal power. It was given to him this to the second beast to breathe to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed. Now, the dispensationalists have always had a heyday with this. Man, you can just let your science fiction trained imagination run wild with what this image of the beast is.
53:27 And then in verse 16, we get to the mark. He causes all the small and the great and the rich and the poor and the free men and the slaves that they be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead so that no one will be able to buy or to sell. Except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who understands, has understanding, calculate the number of the beast for the number of man. And his number is 666. 666. So, one of my favorite preachers, I won't name him and put him on blast on social media. But one of my favorite preachers is convinced. He's been convinced for a long time of the dispensational version of things.
54:14 He really thinks we're in the final days of the final days. And one of the things that he did recently, I saw him just showing that here's this system that the UK is considering putting in place, which is basically an economic thing like that. You know, and like either a card or a chip that you would carry under your skin or something like that. And he went on like he's concerned this is the mark of the beast. We're seeing the mark of the beast rising up right now. But according to the dispensational scheme, the church should be gone at the beginning of Revelation chapter 4. And here we are. The mark of the beast doesn't show up until Revelation chapter 13.
55:02 And this has been for a long time one of my hard spots with the dispensational insistence that any day we could get raptured. As we just mentioned, there needs to be a revived Roman Empire for the tribulation things to really take place. There's no revived Roman Empire around us unless you just are willing to call anything the revived Roman Empire. And the mark of the beast. Why are there Christians who think they're going to be raptured before the tribulation? Why are there Christians who are terrified that they're going to accidentally take the mark of the beast? Are you living in the tribulation or do you expect to be delivered from the tribulation? Which is this going to be? I don't think you can have it both ways.
55:49 But our dispensational friends, they really do. They want to have it both ways. I'm out of here any moment. But I'm also seeing tribulation stuff happening around us. Well, your system makes no sense. Even you are confused by your system. And I am not going to propose to you the ultimate solution to the 666 puzzle. I will admit, if you read the books by the Preterists, they'll do a good job of arguing that Caesar Nero, his name at least in Latin, does translate to 666. Is it Latin or Greek?
56:34 Anyway, they can convince you that Nero, his name adds up to 666. Because in one manuscript it's 616. Oh yeah, right. There is one ancient manuscript of Revelation that has 616. You don't hear that talked about very often. But there's at least a chance that's the correct reading. There's more that say 666. And this is why it shows up in your Bible that way. But anyway, read what the Preterists say. And there's a good case to be made that 666, 616 has to do with Nero. On the other hand, then you read our Protestant brothers. You read Martin Luther. You read reformers who lived in that time.
57:23 And they'll have you convinced, man, it's got to be the Pope. It's got to be 666. Clearly the Pope. It says it on his chair, Vicarius Filii Dei. It's screaming 666. And that's pretty prevalent as well. And I'm not going to say who I think is right there. I do kind of buy into that idea that what Revelation is doing is not showing us history pre-written down, but just showing us the way that these things work and have always worked. And when we see them working that way, then we shouldn't be shocked. So I would not say to a brother from the first century, oh, you didn't really live through these tribulation things.
58:09 Clearly he did. Clearly he was facing all these things. And our Protestant brothers and those before them that were burned at the stake at the hands of the papal system, they were clearly dealing with an Antichrist. You know, there's no arguing with that. And I just think it's very possible that we may see a different manifestation of the same sort of thing with us. Well, I think that kind of thing can very well go on. Because the globalists, they want to control the entire world. And many countries are finally becoming sovereign. But they actually have like a worldwide court. And, you know, that they can just go after anybody in the whole world, depending on what they decide.
59:00 The WHO, the EU, the WEM. It's all about a few in control of the whole world. Right. Well, I know that's their design. I don't think it'll work. But, I mean, when they, right. Even now that whole, the, what was the, the World Economic Forum. The ones that were kind of behind the whole coronavirus thing. They were very confident in the middle of it. They'd speak out loud about what their plans were. Agenda 2030 or whatever. How they were going to rule the world by then. They are kind of falling apart. And somebody pointed out that as big a deal as the environmental wackos seemed to be just five years ago.
59:51 Now you're like, where'd all those guys go? Because it was another, it was another old wacko. It was all an op, right? It's another way to, no way to, I think, steal money from all the country. It's to remember that the one rock turns into a mountain. Right. Fills the whole earth. Right. And so, that's really a positive note for what we're doing, for what this is about. Yeah, absolutely. Jesus does not lose. Jesus does not lose. Right. So, our enemies may try the same schemes and part of the Bible, at least part of what we learn is the, we learn not to be ignorant of the schemes of the devil.
60:39 And that's, and what we're doing in prophecy is kind of learning some of that as we go. And so, hopefully it's an encouragement to you. There's no reason to be frightened as we face the future. The stone keeps growing on this dish we call [unclear]. All right. Father, thank you for our time together. We ask your blessing on it all. In Jesus' name, amen. [Unclear.] I'm sorry. I forgot my notes, you guys. It's embarrassing. [Unclear.]