Understanding Bible Prophecy Series (5 of 7)

A Dream that Told the Future

The Bible is its own interpreter, as Sam Braga shows. It doesn’t raise a question in one place without answering it in another.

Have you ever experienced a chilling nightmare? Most of us have had a scary dream. Do you remember how you felt? Were you sweating? Was your heart racing when you awoke? And could you stop thinking about it? Daniel chapter 7 records an intriguing nightmare! But it was more than just a nightmare; it was a prophecy, an amazing cryptic coded prophecy. What it contains is one of God’s important messages for humanity today. The prophet Daniel recorded it while in captivity in Babylon, in 552 BC, the first year of the reign of King Belshazzar.

Take a Bible and read it (Daniel 7:1-8). Here Daniel describes four beasts coming out of a great sea. Notice the beasts he saw—a winged lion; a lopsided, rib-eating bear; a four-headed, four-winged leopard; and, an indescribable, destructive beast with 10 horns on its head. And, then, emerging from the middle of the other horns, he sees “a little horn” (verse 8, KJV) having eyes and a mouth.

This may still sound more like a nightmare than a prophecy, but that’s only because it still requires interpretation as a prophecy. Bible prophecies use symbols (beasts and horns, for example) in order to convey important information. We can find the meaning of these symbols to unlock the coded prophecy.

dream explained
Daniel explains: “Those four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth” (verse 17, RSV). Then, in verse 23, he is told that the fourth beast is actually a fourth and “different” kingdom.

Now the prophetic picture is a bit clearer; the four beasts, then, represent four kingdoms or empires. However, we aren’t told what kingdoms they exactly represent! A key to understanding the prophecies God revealed to Daniel is that they supplement each other. More importantly, each successive prophecy builds on the information provided in earlier prophecies. So each of Daniel’s prophecies follow a basic outline and covers the same span of time—from Babylon to God’s ultimate kingdom. The four kingdoms presented in the seventh chapter of Daniel are the exact same ones referred to in the second. Chapter 7 simply adds important detail.

The lion correlates to the golden head of the statue—Babylon. The Neo-Babylonian Empire used the lion as its motif. Throughout the ancient city of Babylon, the lion was pictured using exquisitely coloured tiles. Its wings symbolised the speed of conquest (see Habakkuk 1:6-8).

The bear equates to the chest and arms of silver, which represented Medo-Persia. And just as the bear followed the lion in the vision, so it was in history. The lopsided bear symbolised the uneven union between the Medes and the Persians, with Persia the dominant power. The three ribs in the bear’s mouth symbolise the nations that were conquered (eaten) by this kingdom in order to rise to power—Egypt, Libya and Babylon.

The belly and thighs of the image and the leopard emerging from the sea are one—Greece. Notice, the leopard has four wings—twice the number of the lion’s wings. So if wings represent the speed of conquest, then Greece should have grown to power much faster than Babylon. This is borne out by the historical record. By the time the Macedonian Alexander the Great was 25 years of age, he had speedily established the world’s most dominant empire. The four heads of this leopard symbolised the four lesser Greek kingdoms (see Revelation 17:10) that rose after the death of Alexander. Their rulers were Cassander, Lysimachus, Seleucus and Ptolemy.

The fourth beast is a parallel of the legs of iron, a symbol of Rome. Indeed, Rome was a power that crushed and destroyed its enemies with iron power. Over 500 years it maintained absolute control. The description is apt.

The 10 horns, the prophecy tells us, are 10 kingdoms that arise from Rome (verse 24). The horns and the iron–clay feet of the image represent the divisions of Rome or Europe. Thus, a different kingdom was not going to replace Rome; it was going to be divided. History, again, stands as witness of the trustworthiness of prophecy! And, remember, Daniel predicted all this hundreds of years before the events.

the little horn
The importance of the little horn is highlighted by the fact that of all previous parts of this prophecy, Daniel devotes the greatest space to its description. Who or what does it represent? In order to discover its identity, one must first study the identifying descriptions given by Daniel (see verses 8, 11, 20, 24-26).

Daniel identifies the little horn a a political power. But if this political power teaches against God, persecutes His people and tries to change His law, it must also be a religious power. So this kingdom is dual power—it is simultaneously political and religious. In this way it is different from all the other kingdoms. There is only one kingdom that fits this description. History tells us that out of imperial Rome came religious Rome. From the Rome of the Caesars was born the Rome of the popes; from pagan Rome came the Holy Roman Empire.

A study of the history of this system of rule reveals the accuracy of the prophetic description. Daniel says it would reign for “a time and times and the dividing of [or half] time” (verse 25).

evelation reveals (12:6, 14) that this period equates to 1260 prophetic days. The Bible informs us that a “prophetic day” is equal to a calendar year (see Numbers 14:34; Ezekiel 4:6). We can then safely conclude that this power would span 1260 years. This began in the year 538 AD, when papal Rome received ultimate power from the emperor Justinian, until it was stripped of all power—civil and religious—in 1798 by Napoleon.

Oddly, these 1260 years are also described in Daniel as a time of religious persecution. History confirms the fact that during this dark period, millions lost their lives because of religious intolerance.

Daniel also prophesied that this politico-religious kingdom, in a religious context, would try “to change the set times and the laws.” And it certainly did, specifically, God’s laws as outlined in the Ten Commandments. And, significantly, the change almost exclusively was with the fourth commandment, which deals with time. There is only one command in the law relating to time—the Sabbath (see Exodus 20:8-11)—which is nominated as the seventh day of the week. This power claimed the authority to change God’s law, transferring all the special attributes God had given to the seventh-day Sabbath to Sunday, the first day of the week.

the heart of the vision
It doesn’t matter how intriguing the empires of the beasts and little horn are; they’re not really the focus of the prophecy. They are there to illustrate an important point highlighted in Daniel 7:9-14, 21, 22, 26 and 27. Each time the little horn power appears it’s immediately followed by a scene of judgment, then the promise of God’s kingdom. The triumph of God and the judgment are the heart of this prophecy—the reason for it!

In giving the prophecy, God wanted us to know that all through history, and at its conclusion, He is ultimately in charge of human affairs. Having given time for people to make their own choices, and for those choices to work their consequences, the time will come for His judgment to start; it will condemn any who, like the little horn power, have abused, persecuted and killed His faithful people. There is an accounting, and one day justice will reign.

Another key message of the Daniel seven prophecy is that God wants us to know that His judgment isn’t necessarily to be feared (see Daniel 7:22). The judgment is good news, but realistically, only for those who’ve given themselves to God. His people have an advocate in heaven and it’s the Son of man, Jesus. It is He who represents His faithful before God (see 1 John 2:1, 2) and stands in their stead.

And, last, God wants us to know that there is a better, just kingdom coming. It is not like the corrupt, violent and temporary kingdoms of this world, full of sorrow and death. His will not be corrupted, it contains nothing evil, and it is eternal (see Revelation chapters 21, 22).

And what is best about it: God wants us to be there. It is open and available to all that believe in and accept Jesus.

This prophecy continues to be remarkably fulfilled. So we can know with certainty that God’s promise about His kingdom is also real. God cannot lie, and the day is coming when this temporal world will pass away and God’s kingdom will be established. Based on this prophecy, the question is not whether this assertion is true or not, but are we going to accept God’s gracious offer of a place in it?