 Okay, the recording is on. Welcome to BC 308, the class on Revelation and Daniel. There we are studying the books of Revelation, Daniel and Revelation, going through it very carefully, verse by verse, on the prophetic scriptures. So may I ask somebody to please pray with us and get started. Thomas, would you please lead us in prayer and then we will start. First time praying. Father in Jesus' name, we thank you for this wonderful day, Lord. We bless your holy name. Thank you, Lord, for your mercy and grace. Thank you, Dad, for enjoying the new grace of you. Father, as we seek to learn your word, the spirit of wisdom rests upon us. Thank you, Father, for the help us to understand and learn and equip for your kingdom, Father. We thank you, Jesus, for your glory and honor. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you and welcome everybody. So we started with the book of Daniel last week. We went through the first lecture, was an introduction to the book, to the course and also to the book of Daniel. And then we went through chapter two of the book of Daniel. So I'm just going to quickly review a few things that we said last week. And then we're going to move forward. Now, like we mentioned last week, we are going to focus on the prophetic passages or scriptures. Now, in the book of Daniel, we're not reading the historical or the incidents that happened in Daniel, in the life of Daniel and his friends, the Jewish boys. We are leaving that out. Those stories, most of us are familiar with. And we're focusing directly on the visions, the dreams that are prophetic in nature. So we looked at chapter two where Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, had a dream. And then he woke up. He couldn't remember the dream. He wanted his wise man to tell him the dream and the meaning. And Daniel was part of that. Those wise men who were in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar, the Jewish boys had been trained and to serve in the courts. So Daniel goes back. He prays with his friends. God reveals the dream and the meaning to Daniel. And Daniel comes and speaks to King Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king. And he tells him the dream. This is Daniel chapter two, which we did last week just to recap. This Nebuchadnezzar saw this big image, head of gold, the breast and arms of silver. And then he saw the belly, the thighs of brass, then feet of iron. And then he saw the legs of iron and the feet was a mix of iron and clay. So the legs of iron, when he comes down to the feet, it was a mix of iron and clay. So obviously it's not a perfect blend. It's like a fragmented pieces of iron and clay. The tent toes. And then he saw a huge rock that was not carved, not taken out by men's hands. This huge rock comes and crushes this entire image, everything, and totally destroys this entire image from the gold to the feet. Everything is gone. And this rock becomes a huge mountain that covers the earth. And then Daniel interprets, gives the king the meaning. He says, and I've shared the notes today, chapter two, five and seven. Hopefully we'll cover chapter five and also chapter seven today. So Daniel tells the king the meaning. He says, you know, this gold head represents you. Referring to the kingdom of goodness and also to the Babylonian kingdom. Now I'll be using the word kingdom and empire interchangeably, you know, if you don't want to get too hard and fast on it. But it just means a domain where there was a leader, a king. So he says, the head of gold represents you. But after you, there's going to come another kingdom. That's the silver, the brass of silver. And then after that, there's going to be another kingdom, the bronze. And then after that, there's going to be a very strong kingdom that's going to overpower everything else. We talked about the legs of iron, very strong. But then that would become the feet, which are a mix of iron and clay. Meaning it's going to be fragmented. It's going to be a loosely held kingdom. He also spoke that there would be a mix of the peoples. That means mixed race, a lot of different people. And then there would be these dentos. So that was it. And then after that would be the kingdom of the Messiah. The God himself, the God of heaven will set up his kingdom on the earth. That would be the final kingdom. The God of heaven will set up his kingdom. So what we said was that in this very first dream that is recorded here in Daniel, it's like an outline of what is to come further in the book of Daniel. We will get more details. So this is like the outline, the opening picture, which is going to be further developed. A lot of details are going to be given to us as we go through the book of Daniel. But what we noticed was it starts off with the present time. That means from the time Daniel was King Nebuchadnezzar. And it goes all the way till the eternal kingdom or the kingdom of the Messiah is set up on the earth. So what is the time frame being covered in that dream all the way from the time of Nebuchadnezzar to till the kingdom of the Messiah? That's the time frame that's covering in that dream. But it doesn't tell us the duration of all the kingdoms. It just says, okay, there's going to be one, there's going to be another, there's going to be another. There will be the fifth kingdom and then there will be the final kingdom of the Messiah. It doesn't tell us what is the duration or if there are any gaps in between, it doesn't tell us that. It just gives us the sequence. But the details are going to start coming in the subsequent chapters. So it's like an outline given to us. So we're going to go forward from there. Any questions? Maybe you might have thought about this or read chapter 2. Anybody has any questions before we go forward? No questions. Feel free to ask or type in the chat. Right. So now in Daniel chapter 3, we're not going to spend time in chapter 3, but it's just a quick overview. Nebuchadnezzar at that time, he's very powerful. He's the Babylonian king. So he makes this big image perhaps of his God or whatever he imagined of his God. He said, you know, I want everybody to worship this image. And we know the story. Daniel's three friends refused to worship the image and then they are thrown into the fiery furnace. And Nebuchadnezzar sees that there's the fourth man in the fiery furnace. And, you know, these three Jewish boys or Hebrew boys are not burned. They're unharmed. They come out and it makes Nebuchadnezzar so aware that the God of the Hebrews is the God overall. Right. So that happens in chapter 3. And then in chapter 4, Nebuchadnezzar has his own humiliating experience. Right. He sees a dream and a big tree that grows and then it is chopped. The tree is chopped and then he sees, you know, himself being tied with chains to the stump of the tree. And he's wondering what does all this mean? And so he brings Daniel and Daniel gives him the interpretation. He says, King, you are that tree. You're going to be chopped down. You're going to roam around like a madman for seven times or for seven years. But then after that you will be restored. And sure enough, that's exactly what happens to Nebuchadnezzar. He loses his mind. That means he becomes mentally ill for a period of seven years where he's treated. He's no longer the great king who was in power and control. He's a man who's lost his mind, mentally ill, unable to do anything. He roams around as an animal, so to speak. But then after the seven years he is restored. I mean, he regains his mental capacities and he realizes that there's only one God, the God of Heaven. And it humbles him. And once again he acknowledges there is the God of Heaven. So that's chapter four. But we're not seeing the prophetic or all the foretelling. It's more of an experience of Nebuchadnezzar himself that took place. So we're not paying attention to that too much. We now come to chapter five. Right. So everyone's with me. Let's go to Daniel chapter five. So when you come to Daniel chapter five and you will see some of these things in the notes that have given you the PDF. You can look at it. It starts of Daniel chapter five starts off with Belchazar the king. So we are now skipping some time in between. So Daniel was serving. He actually served four different people. Nebuchadnezzar, Belchazar, Darius and Cyrus. I think yeah. The four different kings are leaders. He served. So when we come into chapter five, chapter five verse one starting, it starts with the name of Belchazar. So Belchazar is the grandson of King Nebuchadnezzar. So by this time, Nebuchadnezzar is dead. And in between there were a couple of other leaders who came in for a brief period. They were killed or murdered and taken out of the way. And finally, Belchazar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar is in charge. And I've just given you that history piece there in the notes. I mean, it's not something you have to memorize or learn and learn. It's just for information. So basically time has passed. And now, you know, just keep in mind that historical dates and age, these things are approximate. But they're not precise because history of those times. We're talking about 6th century BC coming into the 5th century BC, those times. It has to be reconstructed based on documents that people find archaeological information and all of that. So history is basically reconstructed based on all of those things. And so the dates that we put out or the age, these are approximate. But it would be close enough. So it's not going to be deviated by hundreds of years or even 50 years. But it would be close enough maybe two to five years in that range. So you'll find some variations from books to books or historian to historian in the actual dates. But they're approximate because that has to be reconstructed based on archaeological findings and writings and so on. So whatever dates I've put in the notes, just keep it in mind. It's approximate. They're not always precise unless it's been stated. If something happened on a particular day, then we can state this would happen on that day. But otherwise they are approximate based on historical findings. So chapter five, we have the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar who is in charge of the Babylonian empire. And he is, you know, making merry. He is living an extravagant life. And I'll just quickly mention the introduction and we will actually read the prophetic part of it. But if you will follow along with me in verse two of Daniel chapter five, you'll find that Belshazzar is feasting and he's actually using the gold and silver vessels that were taken from the temple in Jerusalem. You know, just think about, you know, how humiliating it must have been for the Jewish people. The vessels, the gold and silver vessels that were being used in the temple in Jerusalem is being used by this king or this man Belshazzar to feast in his palace or in his court. And so he has all these people, they're drinking and they're making merry. And that's what even verse three says, they brought the gold vessels that were taken from the temple, the house of God and the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines. They were drinking and they were making merry, right? At that time, at that time, verse five, something very, very supernatural, very, very spectacular happens. And you don't find something like this elsewhere, something very similar like this. In the king's palace, in the king's court wherever he was, a hand appears. It says in verse five, in the same hour, the fingers of a man's hand appeared and wrote opposite the limestone on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace. And the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. So just imagine what a shock it must have been. Here's Belshazzar at that time king or man in power is making merry and there's a hand that comes and it writes on the wall of the palace and the king sees the hand. And what is written? It's shocking. It would have been shocking to the king, right? And immediately, you know, he, verse six says he is shaken up and he's troubled and it says his knees knocked against each other. That's where six of Danes have to find that. So really he's shaken up, he's shivering, he's afraid. What is this? There's something that completely disrupted all the merriment that was going on at that time. And so he calls for his, verse seven, he calls for, you know, his wise man, the people in his court. He tells them, can you, you know, read the writing and give me the meaning? And what is this? This is a supernatural thing that's happened. What is, what is the writing and what is the meaning of it? Obviously, there's a message there. And then he promises, you know, I will give, I will reward this person who was able to do it very well. And the king's wise man, they could all, you know, they were looking at it. They couldn't, you know, decipher it and decipher it and give its meaning. And then somebody remembers that there is a man, I'm looking at verse 11, Daniel chapter five, verse 11. There is a man in your kingdom and the spirit of the Holy God is in him. And he did, he was able to do amazing things in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, your father. Now I just want to make mention here the word father. Don't let that, you know, misguide because technically this is his grandfather. But in Adamic, there was no word for grandfather. So just the word father or ancestor, your forefather is being used. But historically, you're talking about Belchessar was a grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. But anyway, somebody reminds him and he says, you know, there was this man, Daniel, and the spirit of the Holy God was in him. And he helped your grandfather, Nebuchadnezzar, you know, so call for him. And so the king sends for Daniel, that's verse 13 and 14. And he tells him in verse 14, Daniel, I heard that the spirit of God is in the spirit of God is in you. You've got light and understanding and wisdom. Can you read the writing and tell me what's the meaning? And he says, you know, I will give you all this reward. I will put a chain around your neck and you will be the third ruler in my kingdom. I'm going to elevate you and so on. Now, so we're going to pick up what Daniel reads and explains to the king. So let's go to verse 24. So I'll just give a little background so we know what is happening. But the main prophetic word is from verse 24 to 31. Can somebody read it, please? Daniel chapter 5, verse 24 to 31. Again, it's a very short passage. We will read it. Daniel 5, 24 to 31, please. Somebody could read it. So God has sent this hand to write this message. This is a message that was written, many, many, take care and perceive. This is what this verse means. Many means numbered. God has numbered the days of your reign and has brought it to an end. Take care means weighted. You have been weighted on the balance and have not measured or perceived means divided. Your kingdom has been divided and given to the may days and persons. Then at Balsesjar command, Daniel was dressed in purple robe. A gold chain was hanged around his neck and he was proclaimed the third highest ruler in the kingdom. That very night, Balsesjar, the Babylonian king was killed and Cyrus the Mede took over the kingdom at the age of 62. Okay. Thank you. So Daniel reads the writing and he gives the interpretation. So these are not words of a language that was known to the people, right? Because if it was a language known to the people at that time, for example, if it was in Aramaic, any one of the wise men would have read it and understood what was said. Obviously what he read was an unknown script, was an unknown language. And what he interpreted, therefore, was not something Daniel did through his intellect. It wasn't like, okay, I know this language and this is what it means. But for Daniel to read these words, the inscription and to get the meaning and then the interpretation of how it applied to Balsesjar was a supernatural work of God. It was God who does the work of God. But his interpretation based the message simply meant King Balsesjar. You've been found lacking and notice he said, your kingdom has been divided and it's given to the Medes and Persians. So through that, the writing, Daniel's prophesied what was going to happen. Your kingdom is going to be given to the Medes and Persians. Your kingdom, the Babylonian kingdom was going to be given to the Medes and Persians. So now when you go back to chapter two, the image, the head of gold, the next part, that is the chest, the two arms, now we can understand that represents the Medes and the Persians. The other ones are going to take over from the gold, the head of gold and symbolically two hands, meaning there are two groups of the Medes and the Persians. They're closely connected, but yet they are different, the Medes and Persians are working together and they are going to take over from the Babylonians. So the very day that Daniel gave this message, that same day King Cyrus, the Persian king, his army overthrew the Babylonian kingdom, that very day. And Belchesar was killed, and historically there wasn't much of a fight. The whole, the king was killed, the whole kingdom was taken over by the Medes and Persians. They're working in tandem, working together. And King Cyrus appointed a man to rule and his name, so Darius the Mead, Darius the Mead, was appointed to be in charge. Now historically, and this is just historical information that the other name for Darius, and this is in your notes that I've shared. Of course I've taken this historical information from one of the reference books, that the person who was appointed, his other name was Gubaru, Gubaru, or Gobrius. So this was the man who was referred to here as Darius the Mead. So King Cyrus appointed Darius, or this other name is Gubaru, to be in place of Belchesar and rule that part of the kingdom. Because of course the Persian Empire extended beyond that, and it took over the Babylonian Empire. And he appointed this man, and sure enough historically Gubaru, or Darius as referred here, was 62 years old, just as Daniel mentioned. So here you see the transition from the head of gold to the chest of silver, where the Medes and the Persians have overtaken the previous empire. And historically they have identified the date, so when all of this happened in October 12th and 13th, 539 BC, was that night when Belchesar was killed, and within about 16 days or so on the 29th of October, 539 BC, Darius the Mead was put in charge, and it now came under the Medes and the Persians. So historically all of that information is there. But why is this part important? Because this explains to us what we saw in chapter 2. The transition from that gold head to the breast or chest and arms of silver, the Medes and the Persians. It explains that to us, and historically it was fulfilled. In fact, it happened the very day Daniel gave the interpretation. Then in chapter 6, which we will not spend time. So now Daniel is serving under a different kingdom, because now the Medes and Persians are taken over. He was there from Nebuchadnezzar to Belchesar, and then now the Medes and Persians are taken over and Daniel is serving under them. And that's chapter 6, and this is when Darius the king at that time, he makes a decree that you shouldn't pray to anybody else except him or his god. Anybody else, if you pray anywhere else, you'll be thrown into the den of lions. Daniel is thrown into the den of lions. Nothing happens to Daniel. He comes out and then Darius acknowledges there's no god like the god of Daniel. That's chapter 6. Now we enter into chapter 7. So the first part of the book of Daniel chapters 1 to 6 has some amount of historical information. From chapter 7 all the way through chapter 12, all these are prophetic texts. It's all talking about things that are going to happen. Now what is interesting is these visions that Daniel records for us from chapter 7 through 11 happened during his time from Nebuchadnezzar to Darius. So he's actually going back in time. It's like a flashback or he's going back in time and saying, okay, let me tell you the other visions I had between the time when Daniel was serving under the Babylonian Empire and then the Medes and the Persians. So he's recording for us the visions he had earlier. Okay, so that's why chapter 7 and verse 1 says in the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon. So I'm not going to chapter 7. Is everybody with me so far? Okay, everybody's clear. Nobody's lost. Okay, so I'm starting off chapter 7 verse 1 and chapter 7 verse 1 is going back in time. He's going back to Belshazzar. So you're saying, look, when Belshazzar was alive, that time I had this vision. Okay, so that means this vision that you're reading now in chapter 7 was something Daniel had even before Belshazzar was killed. Right, so in chapter 5 and we read about the handwriting that actually happened after Daniel's vision in chapter 7. Okay, because that was the last night Belshazzar was alive. Okay, so now Daniel is going back and recording some of the visions he had and he's sharing that with us. Okay, so Daniel chapter 7 verse 1. Now we have to be, we are going to go very slow from now on because every chapter was chapter 7, chapter 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 are prophetic chapters. And they have a lot, this is like the main part of the book of Daniel, the prophetic text of the book of Daniel. Okay, so I kind of went through very fast the first six chapters because there chapter 2, chapter 4 and chapter 5 are some of the prophetic texts, which were for chapter 4 and chapter 5 dealt with the kings were there at that time. But chapter 7 on his prophetic, we must pay attention. Okay, so we're going to read verse by verse. Okay, it's going to take time, but it's going to help us understand chapter 7, 8 and on. Okay, so it's a long chapter, Daniel chapter 7. And I just maybe we could just read three verses each just so that everybody can participate. Daniel chapter 7 verse 1 onwards, three verses each and then maybe as we go along, I will interrupt and I will make those comments to explain what we are reading. So could somebody please three verses, Daniel chapter 7 verse 1, somebody can start. In the first year that Bill Cesar was king of Babylonia, I had a dream and saw a vision in the night. I wrote the dream down and this is the record of what I saw that night. When we're blowing from all directions in the lashing, the surface of the ocean full huge beast came up out of the ocean, and each one different from the other. Okay, so Daniel is saying, you know, I'm sharing the vision or the dream that I had in the first year of King Belshazzar. So that kind of gives us an idea of when it happened. Historically, they put it around 553 BC. So Daniel must have been around 70 years of age at this time. Okay, historically just making some rough calculations. So he says I wrote the dream down. That's what's one. So that's an interest. That's a good thing for all of us when we have dreams or visions. It's good for us to write it down. So Daniel said I wrote it down. So that's how Daniel is able to tell us now what he saw or the dream he had because he wrote the dream down he recorded it. So the dream begins like this. He says I saw four winds of heaven that were stirring up the great sea. So winds here, we don't have a specific interpretation, but we can recognize that winds have force and these are winds that are stirring up the sea. So obviously the pictures, these winds have great force. So we could just say that these are the forces of God, the forces that are acting on the great sea. Now what is the great sea? Now again here itself it doesn't tell us what the great sea is. But when you cross reference prophetic scripture and as an example, if you go to the book of Revelation and we look at chapter 18. I'll just point out to give us an example here. Revelation chapter. Sorry, chapter 17, Revelation 17. We can look at verse one. And then we will also look at verse 15. Okay. So what you're doing is you're cross referencing Revelation. We're going to read Revelation 17 verse one and 15. Can somebody read that for us, please? Revelation 17 verse one and verse 15. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven balls came and talked with me saying to me, Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters. So we will be looking at this later on when we come to the book of Revelation. But here we're saying a great harlot who is sitting on many waters. Verse 15. What are these waters? Somebody could read verse 15. Then he said to me, the waters which you saw where the harlot sits are peoples, multitudes, nations and tongues. Okay. So what are the waters? The waters are peoples, multitudes, nations, tongues. Okay. So this is prophetic imagery that is being explained for us itself is explained for us in the scripture itself. The waters represents peoples, multitudes, nations are different races of people. We take this over to our understanding of back to Daniel chapter seven verse two, the great sea waters. So it's most likely what is a picture or representing nations, different races of people. So Daniel saying is seeing the movement of the winds that the forces of God or the forces are moving upon the nations. And out of the nations come verse three, come four great beasts that come out of the sea, four beasts. So you're seeing four animal-like creatures coming out of the nations or races of different nations or different races of people. He's seeing these four beasts that are coming out. Okay. Everyone is with me so far. Any doubts, any questions? Let's go on. Verse four, three verses, somebody could read it please. The first was like a lion and had several wings. I watched till its wings were poked up and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man. And I and a man heard was given to it. And suddenly another beast, a second like a bear. It was raised up on one side and had three legs in it, months between its teeth. And they said thus to it, arise devil. Much flesh. Okay. All right. Much flesh. After this, I looked and there was another like a six, which had on its back for wings of a bird. The best also had four heads and communion was given to it. Okay. Thank you. So here Daniel is seeing and he's describing these animal like creatures, these beasts that are coming out to the sea. First he says there's something like a lion. Then there was something like a bear. Of course, there are additional, you know, aspects to it. I'm skipping lion with wings. And there's a bear without three ribs in its teeth. And then there's a leopard that has four wings and also has four heads. So that's interesting. Keep this in mind a leopard four wings, four heads. So some of this is brought up again. All right. So you're seeing these beasts. And then let's continue. We're seven on somebody else can read it. We're seven on seven. But seven, right? Yes. I saw this. I saw the saw in the night visions and behold of both this beautiful and terrible and strong exceeding strong exceedingly. And it had great iron teeth. It devoured and break in pieces and stamped the residue with the feet of it. And it was diverse from all of these that were before it. And it has, it had 10 homes. Okay. Go on. I considered the homes and behold there came up along them another little home before whom there were three of the first homes. The first homes blocked up by the roots. And behold in this home were eyes like the eyes of men and a mouse between red things. Hmm. Okay. Where should I? I beheld till the phones were cast down. And the ensign of days did sit whose garment was wide as snow and the hair of his head like the pure wood. His throne was like a fairy flame and his wheels as burning fire. So that's still verse nine. Let's continue reading. Okay. So let me just make a few comments here. Then we go for a break and then we come back. So, so he's describing these animal like creatures. There was the lion with wings. There was a bear that was raised up on one side with these ribs in its mouth. Then there was a leopard with four wings and four heads. And then there was another beast. So it was some sort of a creature. But this is verse seven. What is interesting is it had iron teeth, iron teeth. So keep that in mind. Iron teeth because we saw iron earlier, the legs of iron in the image in chapter two, iron teeth. And it was trampling with its feet. It was different from all beasts and it had 10 horns. So this image of the beast that he saw in verse seven, that fourth beast had 10 horns. Then while he was looking at these 10 horns, he saw another little horn. So there were 10 horns. Another little horn come. And it dislocated or it overpowered three of the previous 10, three of the previous 10 horns. It says three of the first horns were plucked out by the roots. That means this little horn that came up on by itself overpowered three of the 10 horns. Now suddenly he says this little horn began to have some human-like expressions. It could see and it was speaking, had a mouth. It was speaking pompous things, boastful things, proud things. And then suddenly everything shifts. And he sees the ancient of death. He sees God. And I mentioned last week in the introduction that this ancient of days is a very beautiful and a very unique term that we find in the book of Daniel referring to God, the ancient of days. He sees God and he begins to describe him. You know, hair is pure wool and is thrown like fire. You're seeing God sitting in power. And he's looking now at God himself. So we're going to pause here. We're going to come back. We will read through chapter seven. As we read further in chapter seven, Daniel gives us the meaning of these beasts that he sees and what actually happens. A lot more details are given to us, which is very interesting. Okay. So let's take a break. We'll come back in about 10 minutes and we will start with verse number 10. Okay. Thank you, everyone.