Two Bible passages that I would like to hang at the backdrop somewhere for this message, two of them. You don't have to turn in your Bibles; I'll just tell you what they are. One of them is out of Deuteronomy 33:27, “The eternal God out refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” I'll explain why I'm choosing this and the, the New Testament, Ephesians 6:12, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies.” Two things, two dynamics, one is that, as Dr. Scott so aptly put it, God's on the corner before you get there. That's essentially the sum total of what happens in the song of Asher out of Deuteronomy: God's on the corner before you get there, and there is a warfare going on now and will continue to go on until the end of time. These two concepts, as I said, put them at the backdrop somewhere, because maybe you came in here today and you're sick, you have a need for healing, you've got all kinds of problems; Lord knows we all have all kinds of things going through our brains. And this type of teaching does not necessarily speak to a specific need at the moment, but the big picture says God is underneath it all, in it all and He's on the corner before you get there and the paradox, the sidebar is that there are forces that come against the saints. We need to be cognizant of that. These two bookends, if you will, let me go into the subject that we're looking at, which is leading to the book of Revelation through the book of Daniel to understand that although there's lots of levels to lay down, some of these messages are, when I say they're difficult, they don't necessarily lead to you, you know, feeling like you're floating on a cloud when you walk out of here, but they lead to better understanding about the future things and how they pertain to the now. We read in Thessalonians where it says “the spirit of lawlessness, iniquity,” and lawlessness is already at work and has been at work, was in, was in the works, if you will, in John's day and in Paul's day, and is still now until this day, and will be until that man of lawlessness, Antichrist, is revealed. And he won't come on the scene, by the way, as a man of war, he won't come on the scene as a man who's going to start, as some people have erroneously propagated he will come on the scene threatening and━no, he'll come on the scene with our current world status, the world will love him! He will come saying great flattering things to the nations, and the nations will think, “This is a miracle! This man is coming and he's bringing everybody to the table.” When you see that happening, know the end is near. Now let me give you the key to understanding the whole book of Daniel. You'll find the key to understanding the whole book of Daniel is in two separate verses in the 2nd chapter. And before I give you that, let me give some backdrop real quickly. The book of Daniel is set in the period of the Babylonian Empire and the carrying away of the people. We know that Daniel and some of his friends were part of that first group carried away. They were part of an elect group, handpicked, I guess, to serve in close proximity to the king. And you can find all of this information through, peppered throughout, specifically the, the carrying away of the people into Babylon is in Jeremiah. You can read about it for yourself in your own time. And of course, the opening chapter of Daniel tells us about the nature. The, the nature of the person of Daniel is being depicted in that opening chapter to show that he was a goodly and a godly youth. And then we move into the fact that Nebuchadnezzar, who is the king, has a dream and he calls for all of his wise men, astrologers to interpret the dream, but first they had to tell him what the dream was because he forgot it. Nobody could, so he was basically going to do away with them all, and of course, Daniel is summoned, prays, he and his friends pray earnestly and then he goes in and he not only reveals the dream to the king, but he gives them the interpretation of what he dreamt. And we're going to review that, but in the process of this, in the 2nd chapter, this is after Daniel has now started talking to the king, we'll start at verse 27, “Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; but there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets.” Now you may not read it this way, but I find this very interesting. This young man had no problem telling a heathen king about this God in heaven. Now he didn't say, “Hey, listen, if I can go in and convert the king, you know, we'll have a winner right here, another notch on my belt,” but he says, “But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar,” and here's what's important, “what shall be in the latter days.” I want you to underline that “what shall be in the latter days.” That's the first key to this book. “Thy dream and the visions of thy head upon thy bed are these; as for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee,” underline this: “what should come to pass.” So if you want to know the key to the book, “in the latter days,” and “what shall come to pass.” There it is, so we can be very clear, and I intend to go back. I started reading on Festival and I read through, I think, to the 5th chapter. I intend to go back because now I want to kind of take apart piece by piece, because the reality is there are more double meanings in this book than at first glance. There are a lot of meanings on top of meanings. But to understand that there is a big picture being painted right now of something that concerns the latter days, and what is so important about this, and people always make this mistake. Daniel was given not only to interpret the king's dream, which God, by the way, gave to the king knowing, I don't believe everything is wound up, but knowing this that Daniel would be the one to interpret. And that which was given unto the king by God to be then given back to him and explained by Daniel, is essentially a picture, an outline of what is referred to in the book of Luke as “the time of the Gentiles.” Now if you read in Luke, you'll read that passage where Jesus is talking, He says, “The time of the Gentiles,” and that's perplexed many people; what does the “time of the Gentiles” mean? Well, think about it this way. For hundreds, if not thousands of years, God used oppressive forces to try and corral and get His people in line. If you remember way back there the promise given to Abraham, telling Abraham that he would be father of many and that the people would go into Egypt, four generations, come out and they would be richer than when they went in. Well, somehow they had to get into bondage, right. They just didn't get rounded up, it was all of this happening now where there's a famine in the land and Joseph is head in the land, and of course, Jacob and the sons venture into Egypt to get food, and then of course, it opens, Exodus opens with, “There arose a pharaoh who knew not Joseph” and now you're into the place where they are in bondage in Egypt, and God has had successive waves of this. Now that first wave was not necessarily, I wouldn't put it as a punishment, but more as a promise. The next one will be the Assyrian, and the Assyrian will carry away that first group of people, and then it's the Babylonians, so God has successively used these heathen people for a purpose. This is no different, but what's interesting is that the time of the Gentiles is reflected in the image that Daniel will describe. So this is what's important. Let's, let's take a look at this. He gives the interpretation of the dream, starting at verse 31. “Thou, O king, sawest, and beheld a great image.” Now I want you to think about this. This image, this image, “This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.” Well, if you looked at my drawing, it was pretty terrible. Here's what I want to tell you. When I said there's double meaning all over the place, there's a lot of double meaning. We know this is the image of a man, it's not the image of a beast, correct? It's an image of a man. What's the number of man? Six, right, and when this statue is built, because Nebuchadnezzar decides to build it, it, the Scripture says it's “threescore cubits,” that's 60 cubits tall, “and the breadth of which is six cubits”" It's kind of interesting that it's the number of a man, that it's 60 cubits and it's 6 cubits breadth, that's 666. It's kind of interesting. I'm not suggesting that that is the same as 666 in Revelation, but it's interesting when you pay attention to these things that there's a principle, not an exactness, but there's a principle that will be very important to understand about this image that reflects on an end time situation. Let me stop there for a minute because I'm going to lose some people and they'll say, “What on earth is she talking about?” The church today is so busy trying to get people “in” with entertainment, to make it interesting, fun; have a kids' program because, you know, your kids, they need to go to church to watch cartoons and, you know, get fed cookies or something. Now, I; listen, all I'm saying to you is that the weakness of the church today in not preaching the gospel and opening up the word of God is leading people down this, what I call, it's a cattle ramp. It's a very narrow ramp where people will be easily deceived, they have ideas of what the church should be, how offerings should━how a pastor should be. Now this is age old, but it's getting more and more. It's accelerated more and more, and when you think about the end times, and we're talking about, and we will get to the person of Antichrist and the false prophet and the beast, it seems very interesting to me that in that day, when he comes on the scene, there will also be, you know, we talk about people who are the miracle chasers. They're always, “Oh, did you see So-and-so's having a crusade and a meeting! Oh, great miracles,” like the guy who was having meetings in Florida and people were saying they were healed and people were falling down. And of course, they, typical expose of the media, they follow some of these people around. You know, one guy's out in the parking lot and he drops dead and another person's still sick. And the guy who's leading the meeting, he's backstage getting high, and not on God either, all right. But people are going to be easy pickings for that “miracle ministries.” So what I'm saying to you is if we're not careful, Nebuchadnezzar has this image revealed to him and then he decides to build the image and anyone who will not bow down and worship that image will be put to death. This is why the friends of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are put into the furnace, for not bowing down to the image. They would not bow down to something that was not God. How many people today are able to say they know the difference between what is of God and what is of man; humanism, socialism, every type of thing but God? And that's why I said you need to understand there are great parallels in this book to lead us right now and also to make us understand what will be at a future time. So don't, there's nothing in here that that's wasted. This is indeed like, you know, eating the meat off the bone. There's nothing here that's wasted. “The great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. The image's head was of fine gold,” here we go. That's the head of gold and that head of gold is Babylon and it's also, the only place where we have a reference specifically “the head is you.” So the head is Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom, all right. So we have the head and then we have his breast and arms of silver. I'll try and make this less painful than last week. And let's make his, we'll make the arms look like they're crossed, he'll look like the Oscar guy, the statue, the little muscles there, all right. So we have the, we have the “breast and arms of silver,” the Medo-Persian Empire; no specific king or person referenced, and we'll read about this. “His belly and sides of brass,” belly, sides of brass. And you watch the metal is getting less and less, and you see that Grecia representing Alexander the Great's kingdom. And then we start moving down. We've got the legs. Let's just pretend that we amputated the middle part there and we've got legs, and here we go. Here are the feet. I had to do this, make him shorter today, so he's sitting! How's that? It looks like he's sitting; all right that solves the problem. All right, we never said, unless or until he builds it, he's seated, all right, because it makes him look less awkward. All right, so now we have the legs of iron, legs of iron and which is the Roman Empire. And then we get to the feet, part iron, part clay. This is very important because we talked about the ten toes and the ten toes will be; the ten toes equal the ten kings equal the ten horns that we will find as we go through this book. So here's the big picture, “Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands,” we'll talk about that another time, “which smote the image upon his feet.” If you want the nutshell of this is the fact of the matter that nothing, nothing up until this point, everything from the head, and let's just talk about to the ankles, nothing had been smote, smitten, destroyed, but he says, “the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, brake them in pieces.” That has not happened yet. That has not; that's yet to come. “Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, the gold, broken into pieces together, became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, no place was found for them: the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, filled the whole earth.” We'll talk about the stone kingdom, the kingdom of Christ when it is set up for another message. “Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.” Now this is kind of important because what's going on here, he says, we'll go to verse, the last part of verse 38, “Thou art this head of gold. After thee shall arise another kingdom,” that other kingdom which is “inferior” is the Medo-Persian Empire, “and another third kingdom of brass”" Alexander the Great's Grecian kingdom, “which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.” Here is where we get into a little more detail, “Whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potter's clay, part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron”" referencing the, what will be the loosely, a loose confederate of the former, what used to be the Roman Empire. Do not think of the Roman Empire apart from all of these empires. You've got to look at a map and see where their territories extended from to understand what when we refer to the Roman Empire it would be referred to, “forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with the miry clay. And the toes of the feet, part iron, part clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.” And then, of course, in verse 44, it says, “And in the days of these kings,” remember, I said ten toes, ten kings, “in the days of these kings,” referring to this now, otherwise it won't make sense, but in, “in the days of these kings,” and right in the middle I want you to put a pause. Put a comma, put a mark somewhere, because “in the days of these kings” is when Antichrist will appear, and we know he will come out of this area, which right now we're referring to as the ten toes, and later on as we get into a more clear picture of what we're looking at, the area we're looking at, we'll be able to say out what territory Antichrist comes out of. So it's important to set the stage properly here. But he says, “In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom.” That's why I said there's gap between “in the days of these kings,” which is referring to the ten toes, “shall God set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed.” So think about this for a second. The interpretation is given, the revelation, if you will, and what's equally important is that Daniel is able to not only interpret the dream or tell the dream but interpret the dream and it is for this purpose, by the way, that Nebuchadnezzar bows, falls down and begins to worship Daniel and he says, “Of truth, thou art a revealer of secrets.” Now what is so profound about this is Daniel went in there and he said, “There's only one God in heaven,” right. You'd think that'd be enough to get his ear. Nebuchadnezzar builds this statue that's not sitting anymore, by the way. It will be standing, and as I said, think of it this way. The image, it's the only image of all the symbolisms where we have a man. We don't have a man with, you know, the mouth of a dragon or something; it's a complete man. And I want you to just take a minute to look at the metals and how we go from this, we'll call it the height of something, gold. And people tend to think, “Well, does that mean that the silver and the brass and the iron, and we get down to iron and clay and it becomes less and less?” What it's basically saying is the height of the times of the Gentiles, even though Egypt was before as an oppressor and Assyria was before as an oppressor and there were many other people, the time of the Gentiles starts right here. And why do I say that? You'll have to tune in to Festival for me to tell you where in this book━see, I just did it again━to, to understand why the time of the Gentiles is being referred to, but it starts with Nebuchadnezzar and the head. And the time of the Gentiles will bring us down to the ten toes, which, by the way, takes us into the book of Revelation when we get there. Now from this big picture; by the way, as I said, Nebuchadnezzar builds the statue, the image, the image of a man. I told you the size, 60 cubits by 6. I don't think there's an accident there, but it's not that this is going to be the same beast, but the principle is there, and the principle is that in that day when the false prophet makes the people take the mark of the beast, failure to bow down to him and do that, failure will be the demise of those individuals who fail to take that mark. These would not and they represent a type of something. We'll talk about that at another time. Now if you keep going, and we're going to go on to a more specific picture, we're going to go to chapter 7. Remember, we just have been given an outline of the Gentile nations' power. We're not looking, and this is what I have to make sure everybody understands, we're not looking at the globe. There are, there are passages in Ezekiel that deal with Russia, “Gog and Magog,” Russia, China. There are other parts of the world that will be dealt with later, but there's something specific that is happening here. Remember this is being given, both this dream, Daniel's vision and some other dreams that are being given are pertaining to “thy people; thy people,” the people, Daniel's people. We're talking about the Jews and “thy city,” Jerusalem. So everything kind of pertains to that. Do not think right now, even when we get down to the toes, we'll talk about the toes, but initially I want you to think that everything pertains to Daniel, Daniel's people, the Jews and Israel. I had somebody say to me awhile back, “Why would anybody,” who's not well versed in the Scriptures, “why would anybody bother to talk about Israel?” Now you hear Israel in politics a lot and, you know, some people have said, for example that the current administration has been disrespectful to Israel and not stood up and been a partner, like the other Presidents have, and a lot of people who don't understand will say, “Anti-Semitic” or really very ignorant things, because they don't know about the Bible. But everything through this book, Daniel, Ezekiel, part of Zephaniah and specifically Revelation will deal with Israel at the center of everything. And when you begin to see that━now it will spill out into the rest of the world, absolutely, but that's the place to focus on, that little swath of land that people have been fighting over forever and ever. So let's not get confused, don't get; don't think, “Well, this is going to be”━it will be a global event eventually, but initially we're only talking about, and you'll see as we move down this to get a clearer picture, you begin to see we're only going to be dealing with a territory. And it's a territory, by the way, wedged; let me just cut to the chase and then I can go back to where I am; wedged between Egypt and Syria. And this territory has been in the middle of these two, we'll call them remnant kingdoms of Alexander the Great and caught in the middle is Israel. So let's keep the focus. Chapter 7, and I'm going to try and go through this as fast as possible, “In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and vision of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters. Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. Four great beasts,” we switch now from the image of a man. Now we're in “four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse from one another. The first was like a lion, had eagle's wings.” Lion; don't think lion: tribe of Judah, think lion representing, like the head of gold, Babylon. “I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and as a man's heart was given unto it.” That will be understood when we study the time of the Gentiles together, so don't━just all you need to know is it's referencing Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom, and of course what happens to Nebuchadnezzar ultimately. “Another beast, a second, like a bear”━like a bear━“raised up itself on the one side, had three ribs in the mouth between the teeth of it.” So now we're talking about silver, the same thing, and now we're talking about Medo-Persia. It's just confirmation. Somebody might say, “Wow, you make this stuff up?” Nope. I couldn't if I tried. “Arise, devour much flesh. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard,” Remember, we went from man, now we're at beast, “which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.” We know that this is the brass/Grecian. They all, they just all confirm each other and I'm going to put here my Alexander the Great, and the four wings; four wings, four heads referring to his four generals that will essentially war and it will whittle down to two sections of these four generals, their territories, which will whittle down, we'll get to it before I'm done today to show you how it's just narrowing down to show you there was a purpose for all this to show this is the territory, this is what is going to happen, this is how they will war and then precision that comes. “After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast,” kind of interesting, although these are defined; a lion, a bear, a leopard; this one is not, “dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly,” a non-descript beast, the only one that is not given lion, bear, leopard. And here is the similitude, “it had great iron teeth.” Remember, we've got the iron as the metal, which is symbolizing Rome. Earlier, in the first image, it talked about the iron and I want you to think about it's the best understood this way, the iron, as in an iron rule. And there's always a pseudo-, false something when it comes to the devil entering in there's always a pseudo-something. So we have an image out of Psalm 2, for example, the rod which will rule, speaking of Christ. But here the iron teeth, the iron legs, and we're talking about rule, a concept. Don't think dictator, but think about rule as in what is demanded of the people, because eventually this, this will lead into that peg, if you will; that verbal peg of demand. Don't think dictatorship, though, because we're not talking about a world dictator, at least not yet. Devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.” So this non-descript beast is also connected, as you can see, to the what here is ten horns, which was ten toes, which will also be the ten kings or the ten kingdoms, whichever or however you want to put that out. “I considered the horns,” remember, horns are always a symbol of power, “I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn.” So let's go back to the feet; wow, those look like platypus'━those aren't feet, those are flippers. That's a funny looking foot if I ever saw it, but let's just pretend that these are really feet. And out of the ten, then there will come another one, it's like growing an extra toe, all right. So, “up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots.” That means that there, there are three somewhere in this area which becomes important for geography, “plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.” Now what is interesting about this is you could just, you could read and read down with me in verse 11, it's very interesting, halfway into that verse 11, “I beheld even till the beast was slain, his body was destroyed, and given to the burning flame.” Now what's so interesting is that Daniel sees far, far into the future. He's going to see great detail, but he sees from, from the now, and none of this was yet, but he sees far, far, far into the future to the end. It's quite remarkable. And what's he's essentially seeing is what we will be looking at in Revelation 19 and it's kind of staggering. Now the only thing Daniel did not see, it was not given to him to see the church age. In other words, he saw for his people in his time, he saw that the end of the 70 years would come, that they would, that the time that God said the 70 years of bondage would come, and then on top of that, he was given the revelation of 70 weeks of years, which we'll, again, I will have to do a message on. But here he's given this, he's talking about what we know, what we've identified as Antichrist and also looking far, far, far ahead in that second part of verse 11, “I beheld even till the beast was slain, his body destroyed, given to the burning flame.” So very interesting and I want to just highlight one thing because I know I'm going to be able to read this later, but if you read over with me, verse 17 of the same chapter, “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 and ever.” And I want you to think that when Daniel's talking, this is what's going on, at times future; we're back here, history which is now completed; now, future and well beyond the future. There's a lot of this movement going on inside the verses. You've got to read very carefully. It can almost make you dizzy when you're trying to sort it out. “Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron,” here we go again, “nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet; and the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spoke great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them.” Now what is staggering is you read this passage in 7, in Daniel 7:21 and we'll read in Revelation where you've got the exact same thing being said. Keep reading. Verse 23, “Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon the earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise,” now you can, you can see why we had to do the feet again and do the whole statue. It makes a lot more sense when you progress; “ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.” Remember, we just read that about the three, three being plucked up; three kings shall be subdued. “He shall speak great words against the most High.” Interesting, because that's exactly what we read in Thessalonians, he'll “speak great words against the most High, wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws.” Now what that means right there, we're speaking about the person, Antichrist, who will make a covenant and when it says, “think to change times and laws,” that is referring to the covenant that he will break and the false promises that he made that he will break. That's sometimes the interpretation thereof is very strange, but “they shall be given into his hand until a time,” which is one year, “times,” which is two years, “and the dividing of times,” a half. So we have three and a half years, which if we were looking at the timeline of the last seven years, for some of you, you're saying, “What seven years?” Well, we have to talk about the 70 weeks of years, which I will get to, but the last seven years, we'll talk about the last seven years of time on earth as we know it before everything changes. Right in the middle of those seven years, the three and a half year point, is when the man who was known as the man of peace, who came on the scene, who everybody said, “Oh, this man is great,” who came and made all these promises to people, spreading and dividing wealth. Antichrist is revealed for who he really is, and basically all hell on earth breaks loose, and that's when you read those kind of scary passages in Revelation. You're looking at the last three and a half years when things are being poured out on the earth and it seems like everything, destruction and death is everywhere. So we now have a picture of that and a little more clarity. Now it goes from, we've gone from the image of the man with the kingdoms, with the toes, now we've gone to these four beasts. Three of them identified, one is non-descript. And I actually might, one of these days, describe it to you as well, but right now we're calling it the non-descript beast, which is part of the Roman Empire, plus the toes. And when we talk about the Roman Empire, I want you to think about a loose confederacy, not necessarily━don't think Rome as in, you know, Italy. I want you to think about a loose confederacy of the kingdoms that existed from Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecia; everything that was comprised in that. Don't go beyond India on the one side, don't go beyond a certain border, we'll call it beyond the isles. For example, Caesar went to England and then came back, “I don't want any of that,” right. So we're talking about a contained space, which is referring to that portion of the Roman Empire. These ten toes, these ten kings will be a loose confederate of that portion of what is being referred to as the Old Roman Empire. Now we're going to narrow it down even more in the 8th chapter, and all of this is somewhat review to get us to where we want to go. “In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, which after that which appeared unto me at the first.” And here's, here is the vision, “I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: an the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, the higher came up last,” referring to the Medo-Persian━let's go back to my drawing here. One taller than the other; actually, it should be reversed, because the one that came up later was stronger; two horns. So we're clear we're now dealing with, we're narrowing it down. See, these other territories, the Babylonian Empire is really part of the Medo-Persian; all of these will kind of be consumed. So now we're working our way down to finding a territorial pinpoint. So here is this ram, two horns, “I saw the ram pushing westward, northward, and southward; so that no beast might stand before him, neither was there any that could deliver out of his hand; but he did according to his will, and became great.” So what do we know about this? We know that in God's word, God tells us abundantly about Cyrus, we know about Darius, we know about these people of this empire, but Cyrus the Great was probably the highpoint, if you will. And he says, “As I was considering, behold, a he goat came from the west,” and referring not, you notice he doesn't say from the east or from the south; from the west, “on the face of the whole earth,” and if you're considering where Daniel is writing from, the west is that portion, Grecia, Macedonia, “west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the ground: and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes.” Touched, his feet essentially did not touch the ground, he's the remarkable swiftness and the quickness in which he went through and conquered. And the most important thing: “a notable horn between his eyes,” and this is where most people stumble with this. They say, “Well, wait a minute, Alexander the Great,” of whom this is talking about, “he's a historical personage, and there's no such record of him being possessed.” Well, if you're a secular historian, you probably wouldn't be recording that. This is not, although it tips into secular history, we're talking about the record that was given to Daniel in a vision, let's just say at least, perhaps 200-300 years before Alexander the Great even lived. So I'm going to bank on what Daniel's talking about first before I listen to secular historian and painter, embellished, depending by the way, on who's writing the history. Whoever is writing the history gets the last word, right? That's what I said. “He came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river, ran unto him in the fury of his power. And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with choler against him, smote the ram, brake his two horns,” the power is gone, “there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he was cast down to the ground, stamped upon him.” You notice the Medo-Persian Empire essentially gone. There are remains of that empire; there are plenty of artifacts, but the empire itself trampled underfoot by Alexander the Great, “and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand. Therefore the he goat waxed very great: he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven.” These are Alexander the Great's four generals. You might say, “Well, why am I concerned with this?” Because out of those territories where these four generals will spin off, we'll be concerned with really only one territory, which will be the portion that is Syria, Iran, Iraq; but two kingdoms will actually be of importance, as I said, Egypt and Syria. And you'll find Israel somewhere in the middle and that becomes the point of focus. So I'm still working my way there. “Out of one of them came a forth, came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, toward the east, and toward the pleasant land,” we're talking about that Holy Land. “It waxed great, even to the host of heaven; cast down some of the host of the stars to the ground, stamped upon them.” And we've got a picture that we're working towards, and I'm going to do this real quick. Jump to verse 20, “The ram which thou sawest having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. The rough goat is the king of Grecia,” Alexander the Great, “and the great horn that is between his eyes is he first king.” And the horn that is between his eyes, which is the notable horn, which is, remember I just, I made another toe right there; we're talking about the same person. We're talking; we're now getting a picture of an individual, future time. Now the spirit of this individual, whom I'm describing, we will see in the 11th chapter. We will see the spirit of that individual, although the demon that possessed Alexander the Great, the reason why his generals didn't have the power that he had is the demon that was, that possessed him, went into the pit. And this is why when you go into Revelation, it says then the pit is opened up and what was bound in the pit, in the abyss, is released. That gives the thing that was bound now the liberty to come out, which then gives Antichrist in that day, at a future time, his power. But in John's day, when he was writing Revelation, that power was not, and he says it very clearly. It's kind of cryptic: was, is not, shall be. Trying to review and go forward is challenging, so stay with me here. “Now that being broken,” verse 22, “whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power,” in other words, these four generals will not have the power Alexander the Great had. They will not have that power. “And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.” There's Antichrist for you. So each one of these starts with a big picture and then gets narrowed down, we've got; forgive me for staying this, we've got an extra toe, we've got an extra horn. In the book of Revelation, there will be an eighth, which is referring to his kingdom, to Antichrist. “His power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: he shall destroy wonderfully,” that's a terrible description, “he shall prosper, and practice, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes,” we'll talk about that, again, part of a future time, and “he shall be broken without hand.” Only One can do that, by the way. All right, let's skip forward; we're going to get to chapter 11, because I'm determined to get there before we leave. Hold your saddle horns, all right, or whatever it is. Chapter 11 now goes from; we went from this, the image, the four beasts, now we've got the ram and the goat. And now we're down to specifics. We're going to be talking about Egypt and Syria, and everywhere, this is going to make it easier for you, everywhere where you read “the king of the south,” know that that's talking about Egypt, and “the king of the north,” is referring to that Syria portion. That makes it easier to understand, just make a note somewhere every time you encounter that king of the south: Egypt. Just put that in your brain. “And now I will show thee the truth. Behold, there shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; the fourth shall be far richer than they all: by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia,” that, historically you can trace all of these people. This is what's so mind-boggling when I said to you the detail, I said to you a week or two ago, the detail on this is staggering. The fourth is none other than Xerxes, and we can trace a record of this, the historical person; at the time not history but prophecy. “And a mighty king shall stand up, that shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will. And when he shall stand up,” now we're back to Alexander the Great again, “his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven; not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion which he ruled: for his kingdom shall be plucked up, even for others beside those.” Now we've just looked at Alexander the Great and then it will be given, but not to his posterity; to his four generals and these four generals will be warring with each other according to their territories. “And the king of the south,” who is that? Egypt, thank you. Notice one thing, let me go back to the end of verse 4, of “shall be plucked up,” the word there should be understood as plucked up as in “plucked up and cast into the bottomless pit.” That's the power that ruled Alexander that his generals did not possess. That's why I said you've got to be a little bit nutty if you're going to come into this and not read the understanding that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood.” We have the microcosm of these forces that oppress, these demonic beings that oppress God's people here, but this is like take a magnifying glass, or this is like demons on steroids. So “the king of the south shall be strong,” that's Egypt, the king of Egypt “shall be strong, one of his princes, and one of his princes; and he shall be strong above him, and have dominion; his dominion shall be a great dominion. And in the end of years,” that's after a lapse of several years, “they shall join themselves together; for the king's daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north and make an agreement.” If you go into the history books, you'll find that this woman, who is the daughter of the south is a woman named, Berenice, or Berenice, and there's a whole history about this, which I don't think I'm going to get into. I think I'm going to leave you dangling a little bit. For those of you who want to know, you can come back next week and I'll pick up in the 11th chapter. But you go down this pathway to find out that this woman basically ends up marrying the king of Egypt under, under the guise that it will bring peace, and there is a dowry of land attached to it, but it says, “She shall not retain the power of the arm; neither shall he stand, nor his arm: but she shall be given up,” so she, this king already had a wife. He put his wife aside to marry this woman, Berenice, or Berenice, and then decided to take his first wife back, Laodice, or Laodice, take her back. There's a whole twisted revenge that goes on here. Then it says, “She shall be given up, and they that brought her, and he that begat her, and he that strengthened her in these times,” and what happens is finally, when the original wife is taken back, she gets pissed off and she decides to poison everybody. Why take a chance? You know, you err on the safe side. “But,” but a son of Berenice, or Berenice, this is out of her roots, “a branch out of her roots shall stand, one shall stand up in his estate, which shall come with an army,” her son comes to get revenge on those that, the one that poisoned and killed the family, “shall enter into the fortress of the king of the north,” who is that? Syria, “shall deal against them and shall prevail: and shall also carry captives into Egypt their gods, with their princes, and their precious vessels,” and this is a telling historically of the 10,000 talents of silver and the 4,000 captives that were carried off in this event. All of this is history; you can go through this verse by verse, “So the king of the south shall come into his kingdom, and shall return into his own land. But his sons shall be stirred up, shall assemble a multitude of great forces: one shall certainly come, and over flow, and pass through: then shall he return, be stirred up, even to his fortress. The king of the south shall be moved with choler,” we, we've now passed about three different kings at this point, so when we read “king of the south,” don't think it's one king. It's now transitioning from━and historically I could get into them, but I running out of time. Just listen to what happens. You've got the king of the south, the king south, the king of the south; let's jump to verse 17, “He shall also set his face to enter with the strength of his whole kingdom, and upright ones with him; thus shall he do: and he shall give him the daughter of women, corrupting her: but she shall not stand on his side, neither be for him.” Here is Cleopatra, who was given in marriage, again, as some type of a political and territorial pawn, and instead of siding with her dad she sides with her husband when the Romans conquer. And they begin to conquer she's basically sending some congratulatory remarks. Instead of siding with the dad, she's siding with the wrong side. This is why it says, “but she shall not stand on his side, neither be for him.” Jump ahead with me to verse 36, because suddenly we jump from the king of the north, the king of the south, and we'll revisit that, to “and the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, magnify himself about every god, shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished: for that that is determined shall be done.” Think of this now, we're now talking again about Antichrist, so what's happened here is in chapter 11, we've gone to the north and the south, the territory in the middle, and I need to explain all of these back and forth between the north and the south because it's, it's that area of Judea; Palestine, Israel will always be the punching bag in the middle. Every war is going to be waged between that territory, and then suddenly verse 36, we have Antichrist again. And the same description: “he shall exalt himself, magnify himself,” is what we read in Thessalonians, it's what we read out of the passage of Isaiah and Ezekiel regarding the behavior, the pride, to be puffed up, to exalt himself above God, “I shall ascend; I will be like.” The same personage is appearing here. Now jump with me real quickly to the book of Revelation where we can now at least put this as a concrete picture in our minds that these things are all correlated and they explain these events. Chapter 13, “I stood upon the sand of the sea, saw a beast rise out of the sea, having seven heads, ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, his feet were as the feet of a bear, his mouth was as the mouth of a lion.” So it's interesting all of these things are confirmed, “and the dragon gave him his power,” isn't that what I said back there about Alexander the Great? The power that possessed him that went in the pit, “and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.” What's important here is that this particular image that we're now looking at is how we can understand the power that will come to be. We will have the person Antichrist, the false prophet and the beast, and lots of people always clump these three together, but they are three separate and we will see as we go that we've got the same principle. Remember I said back there in Daniel 7:21 about making war with the saints, do you remember that? Well, you read it right here in verse 7 of the 13th chapter, “And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them; and power was given him over the kindreds and tongues, and nations.” But there's one thing that you can count on and that one thing is, as I said, using a promise of the Old Testament: God is on the corner before you get there, God's going to be on that corner too. Now if you want to be here, that's your business. I don't want to be here, but God will still be in control and on the corner before all of the events come down. And the reality is understanding “we,” we here on earth, “wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers.” We wrestle against all these forces that, in the days of what we're looking at, a future time, will be unleashed upon the earth in a magnitude we can't even fathom. When somebody says, “Boy, the devil's really been on my back”" well, let me just tell you something. It would be nothing like in the days of the Great Tribulation when saying, “The devil's really on my back” will have an interesting meaning to it. But what━especially, especially if you're━never mind, we'll just, we'll leave that alone. But what I'm trying to say is that this picture at least gives us an understanding that what Daniel saw was looking far ahead to this sometimes mysterious person, who, if the church of Jesus Christ is not careful, this is not a scare tactic, it's just saying this is why you preach the whole book. You open it up, it confirms itself. There isn't anything nutty about this. What is nutty is that most people won't listen, they won't hear. They think, “Oh, this is a bunch of silly stuff,” but there will come a time when these things will come to pass. And the beautiful thing is for those people who are equipped with the whole armor of God now, they know how to withstand and rebuke the spirit of lawlessness, of Antichrist, which is already at work in the land. That what is say is the intervention of those people who think that you as a person who supposedly belongs to the body of Christ needs some humanistic help, some other things to make it through, versus those people who say, “I will depend,” like Daniel, “I will depend and trust in the name of my God,” and recognize that there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets through His word now in these days, not through visions or dreams, but through His word and He's given His word to say that we don't have to fight these terrible demonic forces, which will yet be. But we have to fight the fight now against those things that come upon the saints in our time, as we stay vigilant and fight the good fight of faith and we keep the faith, God sees that and He will lead us through. For the rest of the people who would like to know what these two north and south things have to do with the book of Revelation, I ask you to come back next week and I'll pick up right there. That's my message. Come on up. You have been watching me, Pastor Melissa Scott, live from Glendale, California at Faith Center. If you would like to attend the service with us, Sunday morning at 11am, simply call 1-800-338-3030 to receive your pass. If you'd like more teaching and you would like to go straight to our website, the address is www.PastorMelissaScott.com
