DANIEL BIBLE VERSES

Daniel told king Nebuchadnezzar that the dream the king had was of a great statue with a gold head, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron and feet of iron and clay. Then, a stone cut without hands would hit the feet of the statue and all the parts were destroyed togetherVerse 35 Daniel went further and interpreted the dream for the king in Verses 36-45... He says that Nebuchadnezzar's empire Babylon was the gold head in the dream. That after him another empire would arise Medo Persia which is the silver part of the statue and after that the next empire (Greece) which is the brass would conquer and after that the 4th empire would be (Rome) which was the iron. Verses 38-40 (Note: These are the countries that DID become the major power, one after another just as Daniel predicted.)

Of course, king Nebuchadnezzar was shocked that Daniel was able to not only tell him his dream but to interpret it. he fell to the ground and worshipped Daniel. he said I now know that Daniel's God is the only TRUE God. The king made Daniel a GREAT man in the kingdom (Just as Pharaoh did for Joseph when he interpreted the dream Pharaoh had) Daniel asked that his 3 friends Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego become rulers as well and it was granted. God sure takes care of his own.

Daniel has just interpreted a dream of Nebuchadnezzar with the gift from God he has. Nebuchadnezzar made him a ruler in the kingdom. Years have passed and Nebuchadnezzar has decided to make a golden statue of himself and that everybody was to drop to their knees, bow and worship the statue when they heard the music sound off.

In our study of the book of Daniel, Chapter 7 is not in chronological order, as it takes place in the first year of the reign of king Belshazzar. As you may recall, Chapter 6, the story about Daniel in the lion's den, took place during the reign of king Darius, the successor of king Belshazzar, so obviously the events of Chapter 7 took place before the events of Chapter 6.

What is a dream? What is a vision? Where do dreams and visions come from?

Let's take a look at what the Bible says:

In modern English ... God speaks to us once, even twice, and because of one reason or another, we don't perceive His message. He may communicate to us through the Word, another Christian, His still small voice, a sudden breeze, or even a thunderbolt, but many times we fail to recognize God's leading in our lives. So when we sleep, when our pride, our own will, and/or our flesh doesn't prevent us, God opens our understanding and sends His message via a dream.

What's the difference between a dream and a vision? A vision can be part of a dream. A dream of course takes place while you are asleep, or in a state of unconsciousness. A vision can take place while you are awake. The word vision, of course means to see, but it also means to understand. To envision something, means you can imagine it. Notice the root word of imagine is image. An image is something you can see, but to imagine is to picture something, without it actually being a tangible object. In other words, a vision is a spiritual understanding or foresight of something. A vision can take place in either a conscious or an unconscious state, but dreams only occur in the unconscious realm. A vision can feel like a dream, for example, you may have experienced something that is commonly known as daydreaming, where you actually feel like you're someplace else, and you lose awareness of all that is going on around you, even though your eyes are open and you are not asleep. Have you ever been driving home from somewhere and when you pull up in the driveway, you can't remember much of the drive? A vision is similar to this "daydreaming" phenomena that we have all experienced, except for the fact that in a vision, the events that you experience while you are in this spiritual realm, are messages from God. A dream doesn't always include a vision or a message from God. Solomon said:

In plain talk ... If there is something important that has been weighing on your mind at your job ... That may cause you to dream about work. Or maybe you watched a scary movie before going to sleep ... That may cause you to have fretful dreams. When something affects you deeply, chances are, you may dream about it, and your dream may or may not be a message from God.

You may recall having a dream about yourself or someone you know, and then some time in the future your dream, or part of it, comes to pass. Did you ever consider that your dream was a message from God? Now, I want you to put yourself in Daniel's shoes for a moment, because his dream is one that affects the future of all mankind. Can you imagine?

Daniel said that in his dream, he saw a terrible tempest upon the sea with the winds of Heaven coming from all directions. Then four great beasts came up out of the water, each one different from the other.

The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings. The wings were plucked and it was lifted up from the Earth, and stood on it's feet like a man, and a man's heart was given to it.

The second was like a bear. It raised itself up on one side, and it had three ribs between its teeth, and they said to it, Arise, and devour much flesh.

The third was like a leopard. It had four heads and four wings on its back and it was given power.

The fourth was a beast was different than the other three. This beast had iron teeth and ten horns. It was very dreadful and terrible and strong. It destroyed the others and stamped the residue with its feet.

In the book of Revelation, antichrist's empire is compared to the same beasts ...

In the last part of Daniel's dream, another smaller horn came up from among the ten horns and it plucked up three of the ten horns. This little horn had eyes like a man and spoke great things.

Whew ... How could anyone (who didn't have the gift of interpreting dreams) ever figure out the message from a dream like this? You'll see in a short while that the Lord provided Daniel with an interpretation, but that wasn't the end of the dream yet.

Daniel watched until the thrones were cast down (a throne is the seat of a deity or devil). This is also mentioned by John in his vision in the book of Revelation:

In other words, Satan and his angels were evicted from Heaven:

Next, Daniel saw the Ancient of days ... GOD ... On His throne, and the books were opened for the Great White Throne Judgment. Next in his vision, the beast was destroyed, and the rest of the beasts had their power taken away.

Lastly, Daniel saw Jesus in the clouds of Heaven, and brought before God, who gave Him power and glory and an everlasting Kingdom, and all people should serve Him.

As you can imagine, this vision was a frightening experience for Daniel. For one thing, Daniel lived in Old Testament times, before Jesus first visit, so he really knew nothing compared to what we know today of Jesus' life, death and resurrection, not to mention all that we are fortunate to have of the Gospels and the other New Testament writings that teach of the End Times, the Millennium and the New Heaven and New Earth. Taking all this into consideration, you can appreciate Daniel's perplexity when he wrote:

I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me.

Ever have that feeling, when something is so worrisome to you that you actually feel sick? It sounds like that's what Daniel is describing. It may have even been easier for Daniel to interpret Nebuchadnezzar's dream than his own, because he didn't experience the horror of the king's dream firsthand.Not to worry though, the Lord sent help.

The next thing that Daniel wrote was that he approached "one of them that stood by," and asked him the TRUTH of all this. So he told me, and made me know the interpretation of the things. This obviously was a messenger from God, sent to explain the meaning of the dream to Daniel.

The four beasts are four kings, which shall arise, but the saints of God shall take the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever. Daniel wanted to know more details about this fourth beast because the horn that came up out of the ten horns that were in his head, made war with the saints and prevailed until God came and gave them the kingdom.

It was explained to Daniel that the fourth beast will be the fourth kingdom on Earth, which will be different than all kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, tread it down, and destroy it. The ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings or leaders that will arise and another will rise after them. He will be different from the first and he will subdue three kings. He will speak terrible words against God (blasphemy), and will persecute the saints, and change times and laws, and they shall be given into his hand for three and a half years. But justice will prevail and the saints will take away his power and destroy it once and for all. Then the kingdom will be given to the saints of God and all will serve Him.

That was the end of Daniel's vision. Do ya think this kind of dream would shake ya up a bit? Here's what Daniel said about it: Hitherto is the end of the matter. As for me Daniel, my cogitations much troubled me, and my countenance changed in me: but I kept the matter in my heart.

NO DOUBT!

Take a look with me at a little more of what we read earlier from Revelation:

The dragon is Satan, and the beast is Antichrist. The Antichrist empire has 10 parts (the ten horns of the beast in Daniel's dream.

If you're a little confused, stay tuned, because Daniel had another vision that we'll learn about in Chapter 11 that will explain this even further, but for now, take a look at the similarities between Nebuchadnezzar's dream from Chapter 2, Daniel's dream, and John's vision from Revelation:

To start off with, let's familiarize ourselves with the time period and setting of our story. The events of this chapter happened two years after Daniel's dream that we studied in Chapter 7, but it is still before the lion's den incident.

Daniel is a Prophet of God ... An Israelite, captive in Babylon, although he has been well favored by the two kings that he has served under, Nebuchadnezzar and his son Belshazzar, because of his incredible gift of interpreting dreams and visions.

Daniel refers to the incident you're about to read about, as a vision. In this vision, Daniel was in the palace at Shushan, which was the capital of Persia at that time, in the ancient city of Elam, by the river of Ulai. Today, this would be somewhere in the southwestern area of Iran.

In Daniel's vision, he saw a ram, standing in front of the river, with two tall horns, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. The ram was pushing westward, northward and southward. No beasts dared challenge him and nobody could be saved from him. He did whatever he wished and became very strong.

Then an he-goat came from the west carried through the air, and the goat had a prominent horn between his eyes. He charged at the ram in great fury and power and attacked, breaking his two horns, leaving the ram no strength to remain standing. The goat threw him to the ground and stamped on him, and nobody could save the ram from the goat.

When the he-goat became strong, his great horn was broken and instead of it, there came four horns from the four winds of Heaven, and out of one of them came a little horn, which became very strong, toward the south, the east, and toward the pleasant land. It became very powerful, opposing the host of Heaven, and some of the host and the stars, it threw down to the ground, and trampled on them.

He esteemed himself equal to the prince of the host, and he took the daily sacrifice away and the temple was pillaged. The he-goat accomplished and prospered much.

Then Daniel heard a holy one say, How long will this last? And another Angel answered, Two thousand and three hundred days, then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.

While Daniel tried to understand the meaning of the vision, the Angel Gabriel appeared to him, and a voice from the banks of the river called to him and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision. As he approached Daniel, it terrified him and he fell on his face, but Gabriel said, Understand that the vision will be at the time of the end.

Daniel then fell into a deep sleep with his face toward the ground but Gabriel set him upright and explained the vision.

The ram, having the two horns are the kings of Media and Persia, an empire growing to the north, south and west, and the he-goat is the king of Greece, west of the Medo-Persian Empire. The great horn between his eyes is the first king, then there will be four after him which will not be of his bloodline, but will come from different places.

Then there will arise a fierce king, clever with trickery. He will exercise great power, derived from the devil, and he will cause great destruction, and will prosper and destroy the strong and the saints. He will magnify himself in his heart and by his craftiness, in a time of peace, he will destroy many. He will also stand up against the Prince of princes, but he will be destroyed without even being touched.

Gabriel continued, The vision of the times that you've seen is true, but keep it to yourself, because it won't happen for a long time. Daniel fainted and was sick for days, then got up and returned to his work for the king. The vision astonished him, but he really didn't understand it.

We've probably all heard it said that history repeats itself. Well, There is a very interesting thing about this vision of Daniel's. You see, it happened already, just as Daniel prophesied, and the book of Revelation indicates, as well as the Angel Gabriel explained, that it will happen during the End Times.

Let's take a look at that period in history, when these things already came to pass for just a moment, shall we? There was indeed a king from Greece that took over the Medo-Persian empire. You've probably heard of him before, he was known as Alexander the Great.

You can investigate this in history books if you like, and you'll find that Alexander's kingdom was not passed down to his heirs at his death, but rather, it fell among many ... but particularly, it was divided into four kingdoms. To the west of Alexander's kingdom, became the Roman domain, the area that the Bible refers to as Macedonia was ruled by Antigonus, the area formerly known as Asia was taken over by Seleucus, and Egypt was conquered by Ptolemy.

By and by out of Greece there came along the little horn, whose name was Antiochus Epiphanes. In addition to his tyrannical ruling of every place he conquered, he reigned terror on Israel for three and a half years, pillaged the temple, took away the daily sacrifice and built an idol on God's altar. He made the Jewish people build temples, set up idols in every city, offer swine to them every day, and forsake the worship of God. Anyone who didn't obey him was threatened to be punished. He murdered many, burned the city, took thousands and thousands captive and appointed guards to make sure the Jewish people did as he commanded.

Now, remember that in Daniel's vision, Gabriel told him that he (the little horn) would be destroyed without even being touched. It just so happened that Antiochus Epiphanes, in his pursuit to terrorize yet more people in Persia, was challenged by them, driven away and lost much of his army in the conflict. At the same time, the Jewish people began to strengthen themselves against Antiochus by opposing his commanders in Judea, and when he was told of the defeat, coupled with the beating he took in Persia, it literally drove him mad, and he died of insanity, admitting just before his death that he was being punished for the misery that he had brought upon the Jewish people.

If you think all of this is interesting ... Just you wait!!! Have you ever had a recurring dream? If so, you're not the only one! Daniel had another vision concerning this very same thing that we'll be studying when we get to Chapter 11, and you'll find out how this prophecy also refers to the events that will happen in the End Times, so be sure to come back soon and we'll enjoy more of God's word together.