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We come now to the seventh chapter of the book of Daniel. And in some sense, I suppose chapter seven of the book of Daniel is one of the most important chapters in the book. It so happens that it falls to this session, the fourth session of today. And if you're like me, you're tired. In fact, more tired than I am, because it's always, um, more exhausting to sit and listen than it is to stand and speak. Of course, it is true that gravity is the explanation of that. The seats become progressively hard- harder as time goes on, and one of my physics friends explained to me that was to do with gravity or something. Anyway, it has this convenience that I shall merely be talking now in this talk about some of the major features of this chapter seven, not discussing with you all the timetable details that are raised by the prophecies given here. For that kind of thing, I shall refer you to the commentaries. Nor shall I trouble you much with the question of the succession of empires and which empires are which. Profitable and important though that topic is. And I shall not be tell- troubling you much today, at any rate, with the identity of the horn that speaks blasphemous things. All these things, of course, as you know, are discussed at great length in the commentaries. I want to do a much simpler thing. I want to look at the imagery once more, and to take it seriously. May I therefore say here what perhaps I've said before on other occasions, but let me say it again because I think it is important when we come to study books like the prophecy of Daniel and the book of the Revelation, in which books God uses imagery to convey his meaning. Now, sometimes we are inclined to treat the imagery as though it were a code. If you treat the imagery as though it were a code. If you treat the imagery as a code, you will do as follows. A code, as we all know, is a way of conveying a message. A way of conveying a message secretly, so that only those who understand the code are able to read the message. So when you get your, uh, uh, uh, telegram from the Kremlin or whatever it is, uh, you'll see, which you take up into your attic when the priests aren't looking, uh, then you decode it, and you've got the message. And in that moment, for the time being, you've got no use for the code anymore, you'll see. The code was only the husk that concealed the message. And sometimes, if we're not careful, we shall use books like Daniel as a code. And I'm not saying that that's wicked. It's a little impoverishing. Let me take an example that you will know quite well from the book of the Revelation. In the book of the Revelation, our Lord Jesus is likened to a lion. The lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to open the book and to loose the seals thereof. Now, if you're using that as a code, you will say, now, John, tell me, this lion, what's that the code for? Who is this lion? Well, it's the Lord Jesus. And then if you're impatient, you'll say, well, why on earth didn't you say the Lord Jesus the first time then? I should have known who it was. Very good, it's the Lord Jesus then. And we've forgotten all about the lion now. We know what the message is, it's the Lord Jesus. And John says, I turned to look, and I saw in between the elders and the throne a lamb as it has been slain, having seven eyes and seven horns. You say, oh, well, I've got a lamb now. Well, now, who is the lamb? And John says, well, that's the Lord Jesus. Well, you say, John, oh goodness me, why didn't you say the Lord Jesus the first time, and I would have understood it? And sometimes people say, well, now Daniel seven and this beast all hunched up on one side, who is that? Well, that's a very good question to ask. There's another way of coming at the imagery, isn't there? Go back to the Revelation five. What is John doing? He's not using a code, not really. He's saying, you know, the only one worthy to take the book and to open the seals is the Lord Jesus. Oh, wait a minute. Have you any concept of what the Lord Jesus is like? Well, not much. Well then, says John, let me tell you. Now, can you imagine a lion? Not one of these flea-bitten things up in, uh, uh, uh, uh, Bellevue or somewhere, poor brute, but a real lion in the middle of Africa, woo, roaring until the, um, jungle shakes, king of the beast. Have you got that concept? That's a very, very faint little picture of the Lord Jesus in all his magnificent majesty and glory. And now I'm not using it as code, am I? I'm using it as the Holy Spirit is using it to get you to see, not only with your intellect, but with your imagination and with your heart and your soul, something of the glory and the riches and the wonder of the Lord Jesus. Do you know why he's worthy to rule? He's not only like a lion, he's like a lamb. A little lamb, as it had been. And then we think of our Lord's lamb-like character, his meekness, how when he suffered, he threatened not. And he's the one that's going to rule. And then we notice a very curious thing about that imagery. It's a little lamb as it had been slain, but little lamb though it is, it has seven great horns and seven eyes. You say that's a bit incongruous to see a little lamb with great horns. Yeah, perhaps it is, but don't you see the wonder of it? That the Lord Jesus, his very power rests on the fact that as a lamb he was crucified. For the weakness of God, as Paul would put it in theological language in one Corinthians one, the weakness of God is stronger than men. The weakness of Calvary, as men counted it, will prove the key to the universal dominion of the Lord Jesus. So we're making, I'm trying to make the distinction between reading these images as code on the one hand, and when we've decoded them, we scrap the code and get the real message, and reading them as images that God himself has given to help us perceive something, so that the imagery is a message in itself. And we shall now try to remember that and apply that as we come to think about the prophecies given us in Daniel chapter seven. Of course, the four beasts that come before us are a kind of a code that point to four great successive world empires. And you very rightly ask, to whom then does the first one correspond, and the second, and the third, and the fourth? You very rightly ask those questions. What I want to do, isn't this a long excuse I'm making? Uh, what I want to do is to take it just from that other way round for the sake of this afternoon and look at the imagery itself to see what it will tell us about these empires, not merely their identity, but what they are like in their essential nature. And so now I ask you to notice what we noticed last week when we were together, that in Daniel's book, chapter seven is a critique given to Daniel by God, a critique of Gentile government. It's a revelation of what God thinks about them, of the way God reads the character of the great Gentile empires that have been and will be. In that sense, it stands over against chapter two, and if you've got your layout, you may care to notice that. Chapter two that we studied last week was also a critique given by God, God's assessment of Gentile imperial powers. And last week, we spent some of our time noticing the differences between the critique given us by God in chapter two and the critique given us by God in chapter seven. and we ought to come back to that for a moment now. Two assessments by God of the nature of Gentile power. And we noticed last week, no- let's notice again now, that in chapter two, God's assessment of Gentile government likens them to the majest- to a majestic image of a man. And when we thought of that, we thought of Gentile government as a proud and wonderful achievement of the human spirit. Not something to be s- uh, uh, sneered at and despised, but something to be recognized for what it has been, a marvelous story of the achievement of the human spirit. What marvelous empires, what marvelous organizations, what magnificent, uh, control has men exerted upon the planet and upon the problems of governing his fellow men. And yet, and yet, not contradicting chapter two, but putting the other side to it. God in chapter seven gives another view of those same Gentile empires, and he likens them now not to some polished, civilized, beautiful, awesomely majestic image of a man. He likens them to four wild, ravening beasts. And of course, the one doesn't contradict the other. They are complementary assessments, and you will need to bear both of them in mind to get God's full picture of the nature of human government. And we notice similarly that in chapter two and in chapter seven, Gentile governments are shown to have a fatal flaw in them. But in chapter two, the fatal flaw is the incurable weakness and incoherence. The iron and the clay eventually prove impossible permanently to mix, and the whole thing is unstable. We are to see that that afternoon, the fatal flaw in Gentile government is not their weakness merely. That's true from one point of view. The fatal flaw in Gentile government, which will explain why it is not by human politics that the age of peace shall come, is not their weakness, but their hideous strength. The fourth beast he stamped, and he bit, and he devoured, and he broke in pieces. Frightful, hideous, destructive power. It hadn't been for God's mercy to destroy the beast and bring in the Son of Man, who knows but what human beings as such would have ceased to exist. And the Lord Jesus comes, and God's put down Gentile government and puts in its place the government of Jesus Christ our Lord and of the saints. Earth itself will say, hallelujah for deliverance from the fearful tyranny that they have known. And therefore, we notice again the other distinction between the two chapters. When it comes to representing the Messianic kingdom, in chapter two, it is represented by a stone cut out without hands. And at first sight, it looks a very vivid contrast between that stone and the image. The image is beautifully polished. It's a work of art. And here comes an old rough boulder cut out of a mountainside and smashes the business. Yes, the boulder may be elemental. This it has in its favor, as distinct from that image that is incoherent and basically unstable because of its fatal weakness. The stone cut out is cut out without hands, that is by supernatural power, represents the power of Almighty God that shall set up that kingdom against human weakness. But when God turns to describing the Gentile governments as ravening wild beasts, and so explains why in the end he will have to destroy them. Then the Messianic kingdom is represented, not by a stone cut out without hands, but by one like unto the Son of Man, in all the loveliness of his ideal manhood. The kingdom is given to him and to the saints, as distinct from ravening wild beasts. And we're back with our theme of man and the animal. So let us take our cue from that this afternoon. And we're going to think of the Gentile powers that have been, and still are, if you care, under the form of animals. Do you suppose God is being rude? Liking the Gentile governments, Her Majesty's government included, to wild beasts. Mm-hmm. Well, you say we're not talking about individual politicians. We hope. And anyway, don't nations themselves carry as their emblems wild beasts very often, with the lion or the bear or the eagle or whatever? Ah yes, but there's more to it. There is a very real and serious sense in which governments are rightly represented by animals. Some of you will have read the book by the great, uh, theologian, Professor Ronald Niebuhr, that has had such tremendous inf- influence on certain Christian American presidents. In which he taught a generation of people to bel- uh, believe that governments cannot act in a totally moral way. And the learned American professor entitled his book Moral Man, Immoral Society, or words to that effect. I hope I've got him wrong, right. What he meant was this, that you, if you want a little oil to put in your, um, uh, central heating system, you of course wouldn't dream of going down the road with a rifle and say, hi you, give me some oil, and if you don't, I should bash your head in and take it. You wouldn't dream of it. You're a moral man, of course you are, and you expect to behave morally. But take the America, if I may, that great and glorious, uh, uh, country. Suppose its own oil supplies ran out somehow, and it needed oil for its economy, and nobody around the nations would sell it any oil. What do you suppose the Americans would do? Don't you be under any illusions, or the Russians either. If it was a question of the survival of the nation, they'd come in with their atomic bombs and smash you. Of course they would. You say that isn't a moral thing to do? Ah, Ronald Niebuhr would say, but then, fancy expecting governments to be moral. And if you survey the course of history, I think you'll have to see time and time and time again that nations do not necessarily act always in strict morality. It's a question of who has the power. As the Athenians long since, uh, reminded the Melians, they said, as they came to the Melians and said, look, here you are to come and join our Athenian empire and to knuckle down, and the Melians said, no, we're not going to, and it isn't fair of you, and it's not right of you to compel us. We are a tiny city state. We don't want to be in your big empire, and it isn't fair, and it isn't just. And the Athenian envoys smiled, didn't they? Thucydides chapter, uh, book five. they smiled. They said, what is the use of your talking about justice? When has it ever been any different that the power, the political power that has the biggest muscle compels other people to do? That, of course, is how animals behave, don't they? Get your dear old dog Fido, let alone some lion, and as I say, give him a beef steak, don't ask on him back. And if he's hungry and there's a lion, uh, sitting other end of your drawing room, and the lion is hungry, I wouldn't advise you to sit down and, and get out a beef steak and start eating it yourself, because he won't say please. Oh, one minute he sits there and wags his curly tail and purrs at you, and you scratch his back and say, you're a nice old lion you are. And the next minute turned around and crunched your head off. I have to tell you, when it's done, it hasn't any pang of conscience. Question of survival. What you say, you can't expect animals to be moral, moral. That is just the point. They are simply, in political terms, power. Amoral, not immoral. Animals aren't immoral, they have no sense of morality. Not immoral, I double M O R A L, but amoral, A M O R A L. Morality doesn't ultimately enter into it. They are just power blocks. And if it pleased them to be nice and wag their tails at you and purr at you because they think they're going to get some advantage from you, they'll wag their tails and purr. And if it's in their interest to gobble you up, they will gobble you up. God isn't being rude. God is being nothing other than down to earth, absolute, literally minded, and factually true when he represents Gentile imperial powers as amoral power blocks, animals, if you like. For all that, notice how fair God is, as he gives his prophet this vision. And I warned you I'm not going to talk now about the succession of the empires and who they were, Babylon, Medo, Persia, Greece, and Rome, or what have you. I want you to notice one fact, and very interesting little fact, that comes out in the vision. Says Daniel in chapter seven verse four, as he's describing the first animal that he saw, he says that the first was like a lion and had eagle's wings, and I beheld till the li- the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand upon two feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it. And the learned theologian thinks it is a reference to Nebuchadnezzar, who got converted. Be that as it may, what an interesting image it puts before us, doesn't it? Of a beast that presently became a little bit more human, more humane, stood up on its hind legs, and a man's heart was given it. I submit to you that that kind of thing has happened in the course of the centuries, that some Gentile powers have become more humane, haven't they? Why, I can remember as a child in my part of the world where I lived, you could go down some of the streets of Ipswich town and you'll see little children running around with just a vest on and bare feet. You won't see that now if you go to Ipswich. The government, let alone anybody else, has become more caring. Oh, thank God, uh, poverty in that sense just isn't there. We do well to notice God's fairness in these things, shouldn't we? It is true, on the one hand, that as the age progresses, evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, and on the other hand, God acknowledges improvement where it happens. Thank God we're living in a country now that's more concern and care for its people than it did. Not enough, perhaps, but it's got some. I'll tell you what, we're decidedly improved in England. If you had come to England at the beginning of the eighteen hundreds and stolen a sheep, we should have hung you. That's the kind of people we were. Not that you'd come and steal a sheep. But, uh, if somehow or other you came to England on your caravan holiday this year and were tempted to steal a sheep, we shouldn't like it. We wouldn't hang you, if that's any comfort to you. We- we're more civilized, you know, and more humane in England than we used to be. Good, isn't it? There's still some places on Earth where if you steal something, they cut your hands off. Yes, some governments have become more humane, more humanitarian, more caring. You say, and there's our hope. Ah, there's our hope. Do you see, we are to hope if we pick away at the governments and work away, and we'll improve the governments and they'll become ever more humane and humanitarian, and little by little and by little by little, the kingdom of God will come and the great age of peace and plenty simply by humanizing the government. Daniel says you won't. No, no. Why not? Well, look at the fourth beast. It was a terrible beast, an amalgam of all sorts of things, and it stamped and it kicked and it bit and it broke. Ah, but says verse eight, I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things. So the fourth beast got humanized. Oh, but notice what, uh, faculties of the human it acquired. Not the heart of a man this time, you notice, but the eyes of a man, standing, of course, for human insight and perception and intelligent, intelligent. What a marvelous thing human insight is, isn't it? Not only in the moral realm, but in the physical. And we have lived to see the magnificent achievement of our scientists, what? Peering into the very secrets of nature, the molecule and the atom and the cell and the genes. Till men have seen down into almost the basic things that, uh, the world consists of. Pray see what tremendous powers that has put into the hands of man. It frightens even some of our bravest politicians, doesn't it, for all their talk, and we have now power to blow our planet to smithereens. Just imagine insight like that in a lion, in an amoral beast. The potential for destruction would be hideous. I give you all due warning. William the Conqueror came to the saw- shores of England in ten sixty six, uh and the English went out to meet him. You'll see. I have to tell you that William the Conqueror cheated. According to the story, he shot his arrows up in the sky, and us innocent English looked up, and one came down and hit Harold in the eye, and while he was getting over that, the Normans, they didn't play cricket, and they took advantage of it and defeated us poor English. We did our best, we tried to meet them with swords, and where they ran out, a few stone clubs and things. I give you due notice. You come to the shores of England, uh, now and seriously try to take over England. We shan't shoot you with bows and arrows. No. Why not? Because we're civilized. We should blast you. And how many succeeding generations shall we blast by our atomic weaponry? You see, we're civilized, aren't we? Why will, why will God have to put Gentile government aside? Because in its last days, government being but amoral power blocks will have in their hand such insights into the secrets of nature, such almost immeasurable power, that their actual and potential for ins- for destruction will become so hideous that the human race wouldn't survive unless the Lord came. And if insight into the secrets of nature make the prospect of the future, if it's going to be in the hand of beasts, frightening enough, there is another thing that's more serious. Would you care to look at chapter seven and verse twenty five? This final ruler, we are told, he shall speak words against the Most High and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and he shall think to change the times and the law, and they shall be given unto his hand until a time and times and half a time. Proud in his power, he shall not only blaspheme. He shall say that there's no God out there. And therefore, ultimate power rests in the hands of men and a man. He shall change the times and the law. And in Jewish language, that is in the first place referring to the fact that various empires, various Gentile empires have come along and taken what the Jews regarded as the laws of God that controlled their life, their daily burnt offering, morning and afternoon, their laws about circumcision, the laws given them, as they believed, by God in his inspired word, uh, that govern the rhythms of life. And the Gentile empires have come along, and they have suppressed them. And to a Jew, that is the ultimate in blasphemy, that a human being living on a planet made by God shall seek to, uh, abrogate, to suppress and deny and destroy the very laws of God and the rhythm- rhythms of life as God has ordained them. Now we have lived to see even more serious things, haven't we? Well, now men have perception, not about the external laws of religion me- merely and the arrangements of the temple and its sacrifices in Jerusalem. They can read the RNA and the DNA and the gene. And they can do their genetic engineering. What power? If you could come to decide what kind of people are going to be born. You say we're out to get normal people. I see. Uh, what do you mean by normal? Have you got some standard of normality? We're out so to to alter men's brains, um, that, uh, man will behave normally. Oh dear, dear, dear. What is normal? Does that raise the level of standard, doesn't it? Who's going to say what mankind shall be? Hitherto it's been God. Ah, but suppose a coming ruler with all his boffin boys gets it into his hand that he can produce a race by his genetic engineering that shall be a super duper race and all behave perfectly. But we shall want to know, can't we, oh, by what standards he judges perfection? And if it's not going to be God, then who? Men shall be men by permission of the ruler of the state. Why, already in some countries, if you, uh, are so bold as to disagree with the politicians, they'll put you in a psychiatric institution until you get better. And what's their definition of health? Not the laws of God Almighty, but the standards that the state and its philosophy set. I don't need to tell you what a hideous slavery awaits human beings. If one day the state takes over with all its latest inventions and perceptions, and starts engineering human beings to be what the state wants them to be. Man's freedom is that ultimately he stands, each man, related to Almighty God. It will not be freedom that men get if they throw away Almighty God and come under the rule of a deified man. It is at these levels, not merely at the level of timetable, it seems to me, that Daniel speaks to us. These are very serious and important matters. Let us finally turn, therefore, to the Messianic Kingdom as God now gives Daniel to see it. Not now under the image of a stone cut out without hands. Appropriate as that was in chapter two. Now see the loveliness of it. The kingdom was given to the Son of Man and to the saints. So first of all, the Ancient of Days comes, and his throne is set up. Watch his hair. White as snow. The wisdom of Almighty God in all its purity and its divine excellence. The throne is set, and the books are open. Thank God for the rationality of God. You never saw an animal reading a book yet. The books are open, and judgment is delivered. Feel the solemnity of it, if you will, but feel its joy. Oh, what a gospel message is the message of judgment. Ha! No wonder Paul preached it so proudly, uh, to the Areopagus in Athens when he said, gentlemen, I have to tell you that, uh, God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man which he has ordained, whereof he's given assurance to all men that he's raised him from the dead. All shout hallelujah! This world shall see justice at last. Days of oppression, of violence, of iniquity, of sorrow, of trial, of tears, of butchery shall be over one day. The rationality of heaven take over. He will judge the world in righteousness. If you read your psalms in the Old Testament, you will find them full of joy at the thought, Hallelujah, the Lord comes to judge the earth. What a marvelous prospect. Because there will be an end to all iniquity. The judgment of God. Because it's a tremendous compliment, isn't it, to paid by Almighty God to little men. If a little mosquito, when you're out one of these nights for a walk by the wagon with your charming wife, if a little mosquito comes and stings your royal forehead, you don't set up court, do you, and say, now let's open the books and consider this. I just bash it, and that's that. That Almighty God should trouble to bring you before his judgment throne and examine what you did. What a compliment. That he takes you seriously, and it matters to him what you do. Oh, what a compliment God has paid to us and will yet pay. The dignity he gives to mankind as responsible to God. And for those who know that they have no inner right themselves to stand before God's judgment throne, that his judgment must only condemn them. Then there is the lovely story of the Son of Man. One day God shall give him the government. He shall be the judge because he is the Son of Man. But before he ascends that throne, it is written of him, the Son of Man. He came to seek and to save that which is lost. That lovely son of man. Coming to Bethlehem. God incarnate. Oh, what a compliment to mankind and the human race, that God, a very God, should become truly Truly human. human. If man at last is to be judged, then Almighty God in his grace, so to speak, will stand aside and commit all judgment to the Son because he is the Son of man. Man judged by man, that delightful man, Jesus Christ, our Lord. We cannot help but compare him with those ravening wild beasts, can we? The government shall be given him. Ah, how they taught him when he was here on earth. Caiaphas and Annas, high priests that they were, they delivered him up for... envy. What a sight the Savior's body presents upon a cross torn with the tortures of the day. What a ghastly mess of humanity. And that's the man. When he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed to him, himself to him who judged righteously, who bore our sins in his body on the tree. That is the man to whom God will at length commit the government of the universe. It was always God's intention that man should rule. Psalm eight tells us in Old Testament days, what is man that thou art mindful of him? Why this, that God set him over the works of his hands. Man fell, joined the side of the rebel, so we do not see all things yet put under him. Thank God that God has not abandoned his original intention. God will yet have the universe ruled by man, but God has found a way to fulfill his de- his determined, uh, purpose. The man is the ideal man, the son of man, such that he can incorporate into himself all redeemed humanity. Oh, what a mind-blowing concept it is. Though we cannot perfectly understand it, it is true of every believer. You are not only forgiven and justified and have eternal life, you are in Christ. That ideal man, the second man, the last man, the Lord from heaven. These are not fairy stories. What the government will be like then, we've already seen, for he lived here. The men watched how he behaved. It is recorded in God's book that Jesus is the same today as he was yesterday and will be forever. Finally, it is written that the government was given to the Son of Man and to the saints. Not just to the believers, you notice. Ha, ha. To the saints. You say all believers are saints. Well, of course they are. And yet there are differences, aren't there? Doubtless, in Daniel chapter seven, the saints that are referred to are in the first place Jewish saints, and no one will wish to dispute it, I hope. But as we read it, we find the promise they're given re-echoed in the New Testament, and the promise held out to us of this age too. Sanctified in Christ Jesus, cleansed, incorporated into Christ, and the promise held out that we shall reign with him. For if we suffer with him, we shall be glorified with him. Turning to his disciples, he said, Luke chapter twenty two it is, you are they that have continued with me in my temptation, and I appoint unto you a kingdom that you shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. When the Son of Man sits on the throne of glory, then too you shall sit on your thrones and share my government. Hence, my brother, my sister, the now, when the disciplines of God are kind but firm in our lives, because God needs saints to run his universe for him. In one sense, we're all saints, aren't we? Who have trusted in Christ. That is our position. It can be a little different when it comes to behavior, can't it? Paul, for instance, giving a fatherly warning to the Galatians, says, now watch it, my brethren, for if you bite and devour one another. You say, do believers do that kind of thing? Have been known to. You may not have come across it, but I have been known to bite and devour one another. You say, that's like animals do. Well, that is the point. If you bite and devour one another, take heed that you're not consumed one of another. Oh, how we need to pray God by the grace of his Holy Spirit, so to work in us, that we may perfect holiness and sainthood in the fear of the Lord and be daily more conformed to the image of God's Son, so that when the Lord comes, he may be well pleased with us and invite us to share his throne and the government of the universe with him. Now let's leave our study there and proceed to our discussions.