Daniel chapter 7				Beastly Kingdoms					14.11.99

History has a habit of repeating itself.  It seems each new generation has its own share of bullies and tyrants to be challenged and victims to be protected.  Hitler was soon followed by Stalin and then Mao.  Just when we seemed to get Sadam Hussein sorted out we were faced with ethnic cleansing in the Balkan region.  We long and pray for peace but constantly find ourselves preparing for war.  The Word of God offers us insight not only into our complex human nature as individuals but as nations and kingdoms with reflections on politics and government.

Daniel 7 is a good example.  The context is a change of king in Babylon.  While Nebuchadnezzar had been in many ways a great man who had come to respect God and show some benevolence, Belshazzar was utterly corrupt, cruel, greedy and blasphemous.  Daniel would have been painfully aware of the new policies of this drink-fuelled, hedonistic administration and suddenly the future looked dark and uncertain.  While politics in Nebuchadnezzar's latter years had been a force for good and beneficial social change, now politics seemed only a vehicle of domination, control, oppression and abuse.  Daniel began to doubt morally his involvement in public affairs and also whether his God Who had chosen and guided Israel was really still in control. It must have been tempting to consider Babylonian religious philosophy which espoused dualism, the idea that this world is the battle-ground for two equal opposing powers of good and evil.  Would evil chaos eventually win the upper hand?  This dramatic vision is God's answer to that question, given to correct and reassure His servant in his faith.

Daniel saw four terrifying beasts rising in turn from the sea (which to the ancients represented chaos).  We're told the beasts represent kingdoms.  Individual kings are represented by horns, one of which in the final kingdom is the ultimate dictator, proud, cruel, selfish, intent on control, rejecting God, persecuting God's people. But these kingdoms have been fanned into life by the winds of Heaven.  Above them stands the throne of God Who from  ancient days and forever reigns supreme.  God is enthroned, our deeds recorded and assessed and judgement given.  One like a Son of Man comes on the clouds of glory and receives Heaven's authority to establish His everlasting Kingdom, vindicating God's people and overthrowing all evil and opposition.

As we try to understand and apply this strange picture language let's look at it in 3 ways:  historically, typically and apocalyptically.

1. Historically.  It's not hard to identify these beasts with subsequent human kingdoms or empires, the lion being Babylon, the bear Media, the leopard Persia and the fourth with the iron teeth Greece.  The "little horn" seems to have most represented  a Hellenist king called Antiochus Epiphanes who persecuted the Jews in Jerusalem brutally.  And yet it was as the powerful Greek Empire waned that Jesus Christ came and began to establish His Kingdom.

2. Another way to look at this is typically, that although these beasts represent four literal historical administrations, they also represent cruel, corrupt governments and dictators in a general, typical sense.  Show me a century in world history where there hasn't been official oppression, abuse of human rights, greed for wealth and power and desire to control others for selfish ends.  In this sense some of the modern Western financial and business institutions are extremely beast-like!  Throughout the world in every age such "beasts" rise up and abuse their power to terrorise rather than serve.

Does this make politics a bad thing?  On the contrary Scripture is very balanced on this subject.  Daniel continued to work in the Babylonian government, difficult as that must have been.  Paul in his 13th chapter to the Romans says Christians should pay their taxes and submit to government authority as they only have their authority on trust from God.  And he was living in the time of some very corrupt Roman emperors!

So politics itself is neutral but it can obviously be used by good or bad people for good or bad purposes.  We shouldn't bury our heads in the sand or become hopelessly cynical.  Let everyone be like Daniel conscientiously playing whatever part we can for God and for the common good.

3. But note finally this chapter must also be understood apocalyptically.  In other words it also points to a time still to come in our human history when it's pictured that one final, powerful government will dominate the whole world, the key figure of which called Antichrist will, like Antiochus of old, viciously persecute God's people for a limited period.

But even that cruel beast will be limited, eclipsed and ended by the coming of the Son of Man, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, on the clouds of Heaven.  He will overthrow the evil dictators of Earth and establish His eternal Kingdom over Israel and all the nations.

Now Jesus the Lord has come already and begun to establish His rule.  Observe in the Gospels His ministry of proclamation, healing and driving out evil as a foretaste of greater good and glory to come.  Remember how in His cross and resurrection He has provided redemption and new life and a promise of inheritance in this Kingdom for all who trust and follow Him.  Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the Earth.  Here in Daniel 7, while we're told honestly and realistically that evil and oppression will always be a possibility in human governments to be faced and challenged in each new generation, the one eternal Kingdom of justice and truth and peace and love will belong to Christ and His saints forever.

In the last chapter of the Bible, Rev 22 v 12, the Lord Jesus says "Behold I am coming soon!  My reward is with me and I will give to everyone according to what he has done".

To Him be the glory.

AMEN