Chapter Seven

Let me draw your attention to a passage of Scripture in Daniel 2 where the prophet recorded a dream given to Nebuchadnezzar, who at the time was the king of Babylon, ruler of what was then the known world:

In the text above, through divine knowledge, Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar what it was that the king had dreamed. Daniel then gave the king the interpretation of the dream. He also told Nebuchadnezzar that the dream foretells “the latter days” or end-times. Since the dream relates to the last days, and my premise in this section is that we are living in the last days, let’s see if we can make sense of it in light of recent world history and current events.

We will begin with the fact that Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that he was the head of gold on this image. Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon; therefore, Babylon was the head. Daniel then told the king that the chest and arms of silver represents an empire that would rise up after his. History tells us that this was the Medo-Persian Empire. The belly and thighs of bronze were the Greek Empire, the third kingdom. The legs of iron were the Roman Empire with its feet and toes corresponding to its ten provinces. Now let’s visit Daniel 7, where he describes four beasts that rise up out of the sea:

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head while on his bed. Then he wrote down the dream, telling the main facts. Daniel spoke, saying, “I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the Great Sea. And four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other. The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings. I watched till its wings were plucked off; and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a man’s heart was given to it. And suddenly another beast, a second, like a bear. It was raised up on one side, and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. And they said thus to it: ‘Arise, devour much flesh!’ After this I looked, and there was another, like a leopard, which had on its back four wings of a bird, The beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong. It had huge iron teeth; it was devouring, breaking in pieces, and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns.” (Daniel 7:1–7 NKJV)

These four beasts that rise up out of the sea correspond to the four different metals comprising Nebuchadnezzar’s image. The lion with eagle’s wings was the ancient symbol of Babylon, the head of gold. The bear was the symbol of the Medo-Persian Empire represented by the chest and arms of silver—the Medes, believed by many to be the modern-day Kurds in northern Iraq, and the Persians, modern-day Iran. The leopard with four wings of a bird and four heads represented by the belly and thighs of brass describes Greece, the swiftness with which it conquered and spread throughout the Middle East under Alexander the Great, and its subsequent division into four kingdoms under his generals after his death. Alexander made Babylon his capital and died there. The beast with iron teeth and ten horns represented by the legs of iron and the feet and toes of iron mixed with clay on Nebuchadnezzar’s image is descriptive of Rome, its eventual split between east and west, and its ten provinces held together in a fragile unity.

In light of the fact that many prophecies in the Bible have a present and distant application (more than one fulfillment), is it possible these creatures could now allude to much more than just the original group of nations found in the geographical Middle East? If so, the following conjectures might be worth considering.

The first beast is a lion with eagle’s wings. Daniel watched as the wings were plucked off and the lion was made to stand upright. Could this now also refer to Great Britain and the United States during the American Revolution? It is interesting that before the US won its independence, Great Britain’s emblem (the lion) stood on all fours and had eagle’s wings on its back. After the revolution and since then, the lion stands on its hind legs and has no wings, given that they took off for the other side of the pond. Or could the fact that the lion was made to stand on its hind legs as the eagle’s wings were taken away have anything to do with the recent war in Iraq and America’s subsequent withdrawal as the US attempts to establish democracy in the region? Either way we choose to view the lion with eagle’s wings, the United States and Great Britain have been heavily involved in Iraq. The second beast is a bear standing on one side. Could this now also allude to Russia and its recent seeming instability and weakness? Or could the depiction of the bear described as raising itself on one side point to the fact that the Iranians are in power today and not the Kurds? The bear was told to “devour much flesh.” Communism has certainly done that, but the command to devour much flesh can also refer to the current spread of Islam and a future conflict between it and the rest of the world as Iran sees itself as heading up the Islamic front against the West. If that is the case, could the two arms of silver possibly describe the Sunni and Shiite Muslims of today? In either case, Russia and Iran are currently close allies. The third beast is a leopard with four wings and four heads. Could this now also refer to Germany, the swiftness with which it took over Europe and its subsequent division between the US, Russia, France, and England after WWII? The German-led European Union is tied at the hip with Greece, an EU member state that was prominent in the news a few years back over its bankrupt economy. The fourth beast is unlike all the others. Could it suggest the final world government? The beast with ten horns could very well describe the New World Order and its ten economic regions or kingdoms. Revelation 17 describes this last beast with ten horns as having seven heads, which could refer to the seven continents upon which these ten kingdoms sit or the seven seas over which they reside. It may also describe a confederacy or caliphate of ten Islamic nations yet to exert their power over the world. Some of those nations were once part of the Roman Empire. Except for the last beast, which has not yet completely materialized, all these powers are in existence today.

In both Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and in Daniel’s vision, the last beast is described as breaking in pieces all that went before it. The phrase “breaking in pieces” is related to the Hebrew word for “evil,” which is the word ra, the literal root meaning of which is to “break in pieces.” In the event that I have not yet made this point clear, allow me to reiterate that any way we look at it, the final world empire (the New World Order) will be an evil one.

THREE DIFFERENT VIEWS . . .