Holy Scriptures and Israel

Announcer: Shalom. Holy Scriptures and Israel is a ministry designed to share with the Jewish people the good news of the Lord Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah, and to instruct Christians on the Jewish roots of their faith. And now, teaching God's word from a Hebrew Messianic perspective, here is Gideon Levytam.

Gideon Levytam: Okay, I would like everyone please to turn to the book of Daniel, chapter seven. I would like to read some verses in the second half of this chapter. We have covered already quite a few verses of this chapter, and I want to deal this evening with the second half of this chapter.

So please turn to Daniel chapter seven and let me read this evening. I'm going to read, and I'll tell you where from, chapter seven from verse 11 to the end. And I'm reading. Verse 11 says this: "Behold, then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake, I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame. As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time."

"I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."

"I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me. I came near unto one of them that stood by, and asked him the truth of all this. So he told me, and made me know the interpretation of the things. These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever."

And I'll stop right here. Let's just refresh our memory a little bit about what we have covered so far in our meetings, especially in connection with Daniel chapter seven. Of course, in our last meeting together about three weeks ago, we covered the first 12 verses, perhaps we've even covered a little bit more, but I would like to suggest that we've covered the first 12 verses.

Guest (Female): We stopped at ten.

Gideon Levytam: Okay, so it's even better. So we stopped actually in verse ten, so we can look also in verse 11 and 12 as well. Thank you so much. Now if you remember what we have seen, let me just remind you, and I'm also going to put the overheads for us a little bit to look at them this evening so we can be clear.

What we have said, that in this particular chapter, chapter seven, Daniel, what does he see? First of all, in the first 14 verses, we're going to look at them just a little bit over again. He received a few dreams and visions. As Daniel received dreams and visions, we saw what did he see?

He saw in the first two verses or three verses the sea, the great sea was agitated. In other words, he saw that the great sea, and we know it's the Mediterranean Sea, has an agitation, it was in turmoil, and out of this great sea came four beasts. We see those beasts very clearly.

Verse four was the first beast, it was a lion, and notice the lion has two wings. Then verse five, it was the second beast, which is the bear, and we can see the bear which has three bones in his mouth and the bear was leaning sideways.

Then thirdly, he saw the leopard, and the leopard has not two wings but four wings. And then fourthly, he saw the fourth animal or beast, and this beast was nondescript. He could not describe it. Only we read of him in the fourth beast, it is in verse seven.

And let me read chapter seven and verse seven. It says: "And after this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible." He saw the fourth beast, it was very dreadful and it was a terrible beast. And it was so terrible that he really could not describe that particular beast.

It says in verse seven that it had great iron teeth. It devoured, it broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it, and it was diverse from all the other beasts that were before him, and it had ten horns. And so what do we see up to now? All these four beasts really represented four kingdoms which will consecutively follow one after the other.

The Babylonian kingdom, we see in the lion. The Medo-Persians, we see in the bear who is leaning sideways. Then we see the Grecian Empire with the four wings, which represented after the death of Alexander the Great, the four captains of his armies which have taken control over the Grecian kingdom.

And finally we see the Roman Empire represented with this animal which is called dreadful and terrible, diverse from all the other beasts which were before him. So what we see really: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecian, and Rome, the four kingdoms.

Now he said, if you remember, that this particular beast, the fourth beast, in addition to his strange look, he also, it says in verse seven, that he had ten horns. Now we don't see ten horns on the head of this particular beast here, we see only actually eight horns, but we learned from our lesson before that an additional little horn has arisen.

In other words, there were ten plus the one, and that eleventh horn that rose up, what did he do? He devoured or he took away three of the other horns, and that's why we see only eight horns on this particular picture to really represent the little horn with the other seven which have remained after he had risen up.

It says, if you notice that in verse eight: "I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things."

And so this particular kingdom is now represented by this lion with the ten horns plus the eleventh horn, representing really the Roman kingdom which had the beginning and it takes us further now when it comes to the ten horns plus the eleventh one into the final stage of the Roman Empire.

Now, one more slide I'm going to show you before we're going to move on in the scriptures. This overhead we find is very, very helpful to help us to compare the two chapters. Chapter two, which we have seen, the times of the Gentiles represented by the image that King Nebuchadnezzar has seen in his vision in a dream.

And chapter seven, seen by those four beasts, represented also, this is the vision that Daniel has seen, we have seen now that it also represents the four kingdoms. You notice by the way in the chart, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. Again in chapter seven: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.

And here is where we see the present age in which we are today, which is the church age. And then after the church will be taken out of here to be with the Lord Jesus the Messiah in heaven, then God will continue his dealing with the world and with Israel.

And here we can see the Roman Empire in the image being revived. We also hear see here the Romans again, the little horn at the time of the end. And then will be the final kingdom which will be reigned by the Messiah himself, going to reign the dominion of Christ's kingdom, established righteousness upon the face of this earth.

Now I wanted you just to see this so we can move on and see now the interpretation of this dream that had been given to Daniel. Okay, so now I would like us to go back to the scripture and let's look at the next verses. We have said that we covered up to now the first ten verses.

In verses nine to twelve, Daniel has the third vision. And the third vision now takes us really from earth to heaven. Notice that, and I'm going to read those verses, verses nine and ten. It said: "I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened."

And that's where we stopped last time. In other words, we are just being diverted now from a scene here on this earth to a scene in heaven. And what do we see in verses nine and ten? The Ancient of days really represents God the Father.

God the Father in verses nine and ten is really about to judge this godless Gentile world, has to do now in connection with the tribulation period. And so notice what. In verse nine, he is called the Ancient of days, and when it says the Ancient of days, it doesn't mean that he's getting old.

What it simply means is that God is from eternity to eternity, he is God. He was always there, and he will always be there, and that is the God that we are seeing now in this particular verse, in verse nine, at the scene of heaven. God is ready to judge this rebellious Gentile world.

Notice what we see about him. In verse nine, we see that he has garment that was white as snow, that speaks of his holiness. Then we see that he has a hair of his head it was pure, like a pure wool, that speaks of his purity. He's not only that he is holy, but he's also pure.

Then we continue and we see that his throne was like a fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. You know when you see about the throne as a fiery flame, that really would represent to us the Shekinah glory. Every time in scripture where we read about the flame and light.

For example, if you remember when God came, when Israel came out of Egypt, and God walked with, led the people of Israel in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The presence, the immediate presence of the Lord is being represented by that particular fire, the pillar of fire that he walked, he led the people of Israel by night.

You remember when the Messiah was born in Bethlehem, and we read the story of the Magi, the wise men who saw a star move from one area to another area and this particular star stood above the house where the Lord Jesus the Messiah was born. Well again, it is a representation of the Shekinah glory, the presence of God.

And so that scene we see that the Ancient of days, we see his holiness, we see his purity, we see his presence there, the Shekinah glory. But also notice, it says that his wheels were as burning fire. And again it speaks of judgment that God is ready to pour judgment upon the face of this earth, as it takes us now all the way to the period of time that we are dealing with in a tribulation period.

And so in verse ten: "A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened."

And so what we see, even the angelic beings, and when you look at those numbers that it says here in verse ten, it says here the thousand thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand ministered unto him. Do you know that the angels according to Hebrews chapter one called ministering spirits?

They are serving. They are serving, of course, the saints, the people of God, but they are serving God, ready in a moment to listen to his voice and to obey his command. And so thousand times thousand ministered unto him, and notice by the way in the same verse ten: "ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him."

And if you just think about the innumerable numbers of angels are there in the presence of God, ready to serve him. If you just put a finger here for a moment and go to Revelation chapter five for a verse here. This expression, "thousand thousands ministered unto him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him."

If you just think about the numbers, ten thousand times ten thousand, you're talking about millions. Turn to Revelation chapter five and the verses there. Let's just read a couple of verses there in Revelation chapter five.

Revelation chapter five and listen, a beautiful expression. Verse five: "one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof. And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth."

And then just go down a little bit, verse nine: "And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God." That is speaking about the saints now, we see the saints here in Revelation chapter five after the rapture of the church.

But then a little bit further down in verse 11, it says: "And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb."

And you know, it's so beautiful to see if we're really take in connection Revelation chapter five, speaks about the saints that have been raptured around the throne. But also the angels which are saying while the saints are worshipping and praising God, saying, "Thou art worthy."

When we get to Daniel in our chapter, in chapter seven, and these verses that we read, verses nine and ten, it also takes us beloved, if you remember the chart, it take us all the way to the time when the church have been taken out of here and it's the beginning of the tribulation time and God is ready to judge a failing Gentile world kingdom.

Okay, now quickly, this is I think one of the most beautiful verses, the next verses in verse 11 now. We want to continue what we get here now in that particular third vision that Daniel has seen. In verse 11, what we see is the destruction of the fourth beast.

Remember there were the four beasts: the lion, the bear, the leopard, and that nondescript beast. What we read in verse 11 now, notice it says: "I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame."

In other words, what we see here in this verse 11 is that the beast is being destroyed, but it's in the last stage of the Roman Empire when that final eleventh horn that came up, and finally that Roman Empire will be destroyed.

We see that because it says here, "I beheld even till the beast was slain because of the great words which this horn spake." And you remember just earlier we heard about that horn, that little horn that was speaking great things. What was he speaking? He was blaspheming God.

He was raising, speaking words against God and against the people of God. And so what we see here that as the books that have been open, eventually judgment came and fell upon the beast, and that is the Roman Empire also at its final stage. It says here until the body had been destroyed and been given to a burning flame.

And verse 12 now, notice the other beasts as well, what's happened to them. It says in verse 12: "As concerning the rest of the beasts," which is the lion, the bear, and the leopard, "they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time."