Sea Monsters

Daniel 7

We’re about to witness four monstrosities arising out of the sea, and they have a powerful prophetic interpretation.  But first…

The Hebrew method of execution was an ugly thing. When they executed somebody, they stoned them. First of all, they would strip the person relatively naked. They would bind the hands, of the person, behind them. They would parade the victim out of town. And if they didn’t have a pit or a precipice of at least ten feet or so, over which they could push the person to a flat space below, they would build a scaffold nine feet high, and they would climb the person up the stairs to the scaffold, and then shove the person off the scaffold.

The first official witness against the crime committed by the individual would do the pushing, and the person whose hands were bound would hit the ground with a great thud. And then the second witness would take a large boulder and drop that boulder on the head and the chest. And then all the rest of the witnesses would join in, and the whole community, until the person was pummeled to death.

The corpse of a person who had been stoned was then taken to an infamous place to be buried. It was buried with the stones that were dropped on the body as a marker. And no ceremony was permitted.

You say, “Who did they do that to?”

False prophets. Anybody who said they predicted the future but missed, that’s what happened to them.

Deuteronomy 13:5, 10

⁵ And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God…So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. ¹⁰ And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die;

One hundred percent accuracy is the standard. Now, you show me a modern prophet who would stake his ability to predict the future against his life.

Well, there was such a man in ancient times. Daniel unequivocally, unhesitatingly gave prophecies without a fear for his life. Why? Because when he spoke, he spoke as a legitimate prophet of God, and his prophecy was not just a good guess. It was not partially true. It was 100 percent accurate. And so were all the other biblical prophets.

There were many people back then, even as there are today, trying to draw people to them and convince them that they speak for God. God had to have some method of confirming who was a genuine prophet, and who was a phony. And one way that He did that was by predictive prophecy. You could tell a true prophet because everything that he predicted would come to pass. He would be 100 percent accurate or he was not a true prophet.

Man cannot predict the future, you see, because he’s not omniscient, so he doesn’t know what’s coming. And he’s not omnipotent; so, he cannot control what’s coming. God alone can do that.

Isaiah 41:22-23

²² Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen… ²³ Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods:

In other words, to all of these supposed pagan gods, all of the idols to which he speaks, God simply says, “Let them predict the future with perfect accuracy, and then we’ll know they’re gods, because we’ll know they have omniscience which can know in advance, and omnipotence which controls. Who can accept that challenge? Nobody.

Now, as foreign and impossible as this is to man, he still attempts to do it. And throughout all of human history, you have your wizards, and magicians, and soothsayers, and necromancers, and clairvoyants, and witches, and swamis, and mediums, and oracles, and fortune tellers, and seers, and astrologers.

You see their sign in front of their run down house:

“Madame Zonga – sees all, knows all, tells all. [honk so I know you’re here!]”

Charlatans! And many people fall prey to their influence.

Numbers 23:19

¹⁹ God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

In other words, in the Old Testament God says there’s only One who can tell the future, and don’t ever believe that anybody else can, because they can’t. Oh, now and then they might be right, like the clock that doesn’t work. It’s right twice a day, but that’s about it.

And so, when Daniel speaks for decades with perfect accuracy in concert with all the other prophets, you’d better listen. It is God who speaks.

In Daniel 7:13-14 we see the world as we know it come to an end. [read]

That’s what will happen.  But when will it happen? Daniel gives us the answer in this same chapter. It is an incredible insight.

verses 1-2                Now, what is the great sea? Well, Daniel lived in the Mediterranean area. It was called the great sea.

And he sees the sea in turbulence, in violence, in turmoil, being torn up. And what is doing it is the four winds of the heaven.

Now, four is a number that’s associated with the earth. There are four seasons. We talk about the four corners of the earth. The wind comes from four directions: north, south, east, west.

The sea represents humanity.

Revelation 17:15

¹⁵ And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest…are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

And the earth is in boiling, convulsing, raging, disturbed turmoil. Upheaval, distress, etc. This is how God views the nations…in chaos. And we see it, don’t we? We can understand how Daniel feels.

v. 3          Sea monsters! Huge, massive monstrosities. They are not animals, but they are like animals. Daniel knows they can only be described in terms that we would understand; so, they’re described like certain animals, and yet they are distinct. But they are all monsters.

So, out of the raging, boiling, troubled sea of humanity rise four super powers, four monstrosities, four great empires who are bloody and fearful. This is very familiar – isn’t it? – to the vision of Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 2 - where Nebuchadnezzar saw this colossal image of gold, and silver, and bronze, and iron.

And we saw four great world empires: Babylonian, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. Well, this is the same thing again, only from a different perspective. It is the same four world empires. But Nebuchadnezzar was a pagan. And so, Nebuchadnezzar’s vision viewed it from a lost man’s vantage. In other words, when Nebuchadnezzar saw these super powers that would control history, Nebuchadnezzar saw them as a colossal, glorious, gold-headed, massive, monumental image, because that’s the way he perceived them. But when Daniel sees them, because he sees with the eye of God, he does not see any beauty. He does not see any wonder. He does not the shining brilliance of metal. He sees ugly monstrosities; he sees wild, uncontrolled beasts, because that’s God’s perception.

Man sees His kingdoms as something marvelous, and thrilling. And God sees man’s kingdoms as something ugly, and wild, and murderous, and bloody. Man looks on his empires as achievements. God looks on them as sinful and out of control.

Now, let’s look at each of the four beasts, verse 4.

The first one is Babylon. Lions were symbolic of the Babylonian Empire. They were symbolic of Nebuchadnezzar’s day. The king of beasts corresponds to the head of gold: Nebuchadnezzar, the monarchy of Babylon.

But notice; it had eagle’s wings. Eagles are the king of birds. And so, this was the pinnacle of a monarchy. And I believe the eagle’s wings speak of the swiftness of Nebuchadnezzar’s conquering. After the battle of Carchemish in 605 B.C., he just swept across that known world and conquered it all.

Archaeologists have discovered that at the gates of the city of Babylon there were, guarding the gates, lions with wings. That was the Babylonians’ own symbol for their kingdom and their government.

Daniel’s contemporaries – Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and even Habakkuk speak of the lion and the eagle in reference to Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar. So, we know it’s Babylon.

And so, he says there’s a world empire Babylon. But what happened to it? Its wings were plucked. This is Nebuchadnezzar’s humiliation. You remember in chapter 4 that in the midst of his rule, he’d said, “I have built this great city”? And God said, “That’s enough out of you, Nebuchadnezzar.” And God struck him with insanity. And God sent him out of the city to eat grass like an ox, and his fingernails became like bird’s claws. And hair covered his body, and he was a beast. And he had the mind of an animal. That’s the plucking of the wings.

And later on, you’ll remember, he was lifted up from the earth, [end of verse 4.] God restored his sanity to him. He was made to stand upon his feet as man, and a man’s heart was given to him in exchange for the heart of a beast, which he had had for seven years.

Now let’s look at the second beast in verse 5.

This has to be the Medo-Persian Empire, strong as a bear, known for its strength and its fierceness in battle, indicated to us in Isaiah chapter 13.

Now, notice that it says, “It raised up itself on one side.” It had one foot up in the air, as if it were beginning to take one of its ponderous steps forward. But raising it up on one side speaks of the fact that in the Medo-Persian Empire, the Persians dominated the Medes, and they were the ones that had the greater importance, and the greater power, and the greater dominance.  They became Iran until this day, and they will continue on, regardless of what bombs we’re about to drop, for they are an integral part of the end of the world.

Notice also that three ribs were in the bear’s mouth. These are the remains of some nations that they conquered. They conquered the Babylonian Empire, Egypt, and the nation of Lydia [modern day Turkey]. These 3 nations were defeated by the Persians.

Verse 6            This is fabulous. It is prophecy made hundreds of years before it ever came to pass, and its detail is utterly incredible.

It says there will be a third nation like a leopard or a panther, the swiftest of all. Known for agility and speed, and an insatiable thirst for blood, a beast of prey. This is clearly the nation Greece, which followed the Medo-Persian Empire. Upon its back are four wings.

Now, a leopard or a panther is fast enough, and you add the wings to the back, and you have incredible speed and action. And, of course, the great leader of the Grecian period was Alexander the Great who conquered the world faster than anyone in history, with remarkable swiftness, like a leopard with wings rapaciously sweeping across the world, extending his kingdom. He ruled everything from Europe to India – just swept it all. By the time he was 33 years of age, he had conquered the whole world. The lightning speed of his conquest was without equal in the ancient world.

Now, notice this fascinating thing, “And the beast also had four heads” – now why? Who could predict that? What does that mean? Well, the final phase of Alexander’s Greek world empire was divided among his four generals when he died. Their names were Cassander, Lysimacus, Seleucus, and Ptolemy. And the kingdom of Greece was divided among them.

The fourth beast is in verse 7         

The iron is a dead giveaway.  This is the Roman Empire.

Now, this doesn’t look like any animal. It’s just a fierce beast. We don’t have any idea what it looked like. This is the beast of Revelation 13 which refers to the Revived Roman Empire and the Antichrist who comes out of it.

Keep in mind that the Roman Empire lasted much longer than the others. The others lasted a maximum of 200 years. The Roman Empire went on for nearly 1,500 years.

It had great iron teeth. That speaks of its ability to crush and devour and smash and shred. And it stamped the residue with its feet. It was fierce and dreadful, ripping and tearing with its teeth and crushing everything underneath it. If ever there was anything that symbolized Rome, it was its crushing legions that tramped their way through the world conquering. It was different from all the beasts that were before it.

And then this remarkable statement, “It had ten horns.”

Now, in Scripture, a horn refers to authority, or power, or a king. The final phase of the fourth empire is a ten-kingdom monarchy – ten horns, the final ten-nation form of the Roman Empire.

Revelation 17:12

¹² And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.

I believe we’re living in a time when that is coming to pass. This administration has been all about peace, and unthinkable treaties are being signed by nations that seem impossible.  And it is impossible for it to last. Right now there’s much in flux, but in the end, it will be a ten nation deal.

When? When does the kingdom of Christ come? When is it going to take place? When is it going to happen?

Here’s the answer: The kingdom of Christ follows the final kingdom of the nations. That is the ten-nation confederacy of the revived Roman Empire. That is during the 7 year Great Tribulation, which could start at any time, following the rapture of the church, which can happen at any time.

People, we’re right at the threshold.

v. 8, 24                    Out of those ten, there’ll rise one who will subdue the others. This is the Antichrist. He plunges the world into a darkness never before known. Daniel shows us these sea monsters rising up out of the water.  Check this out:

Revelation 13:1-2

¹ And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. ² And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon [Satan] gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

Spoiler alert.  He will be defeated by the Son of Man, the Ancient of Days.  No need to fear antichrist if you know Jesus Christ!