NT Framework - Living in a Beastly Kingdom

The people who rule over us, regardless of how well we think of them, are so inferior to the future kingdom and its perfect King, that by comparison they are compared to brute beasts.

More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com 

This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).

Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner. 

Transcript

Setting The Daniel Framework

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and our series on the New Testament framework. Today, a smaller, bite-sized piece from the larger lesson. We hope you enjoy it.

Nebuchadnezzar’s Statue And Five Kingdoms

Daniel 7’s Beasts Parallel Daniel 2

The Great Sea And Spiritual Warfare

Four Beasts And Their Empires

Ten Horns, Little Horn, Antichrist

Court In Heaven And Opened Books

Son Of Man Receives Everlasting Dominion

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Daniel chapter seven. Daniel was taken captivity to the Babylonians, right? And he was a young boy, probably no more than fifteen or sixteen, seventeen years old. When he was taken, and he had enough Bible doctrine in his soul to stand up to the pressures to become a Babylonian. And uh he stood in the face of that and he rose to be the number two man in all of Babylon because he was able to continue to trust the Lord through the difficulties of living in a pagan empire. And he received lots of visions. Two of these visions are corollary or parallel, and that's chapters two and seven. Chapter two is that great um dream that Nebuchadnezzar had repeatedly that he that bothered him, right? It was a metal statue with a golden head, silver chest and arms, bronze waist and thighs, and legs made of iron, with feet of iron mixed with clay, right? That great image, and then a stone would come and strike the statue at the base, and it would obliterate the whole stone, and that stone would then grow to fill the whole earth. And what it's picturing is the five kingdoms. The five kingdoms. Four Gentile kingdoms, the head of gold, Nebuchadnezzar was the head of gold, right? He signified the Babylonian Empire. Medo-Persia was the silver, Greece was the waste of bronze, and then Rome is the legs of iron and iron feet, you know, that are iron mixed of clay. That's Rome. So there's your four great Gentile kingdoms, what Jesus called the times of the Gentiles in Luke 21, 24. This is a time in history from the days of Daniel, continuing to our own day, when Gentile imperialism is the rule of the day. Okay? So Gentiles have been given the right to rule, but following that will be a fifth kingdom, and that's the kingdom, the stone kingdom, pictured in Daniel 2, which shatters all the Gentile kingdoms and it fills the whole earth. So it replaces those same kingdoms, it's in the same sphere, and we're still awaiting that, and of course, Christ in his session relates to this. That's Daniel 2. Now, Daniel 7 is parallel, right? Again, we're going to see four beasts, and then we're going to see the Son of Man. So these two, Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 are parallel stories. And yet Daniel 7 does not talk about a metal statue and depict them that way, but by four animals, followed by a son of man who comes to rule. So let's look at it. Daniel chapter 7, verse 2. Daniel said, I was looking in my vision by night. Behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. Now, this is part of the vision that he's seeing, right? So it its imagery and it's significant. We often just pass by that portion, but but it's significant because what does the great sea represent in Scripture? First of all, the Jews were afraid of the sea. They were not sailors. In the ancient world, the Phoenicians were the sailors, which is the background for why Jonah setting sail to run away from the Lord and not go to Nineveh is so significant. Jews didn't like to get on boats. But he would rather get on a boat than he would go to Nineveh. But that story for the Jews is that they always viewed the seas as something that was easily stirred up and chaotic, as very dangerous. Of course, the great sea monsters and beasts and things in the sea that could kill too. So they were fearful of the sea. And the great sea represented in the Bible, it came to represent metaphorically, Gentile nations. Because the gentile nations are just like that. They're chaotic. They're confusing places to live. They're difficult places to live. They're dangerous places to live. So the Great Sea represents Gentile nations, but what is stirring up the Great Sea? The four winds of heaven. Now, the four winds, it's not by doubt that, you know, just by circumstance, let's say, that spirit beings are referred to as spirits, which is connected to the wind, right? Our wind, our breath. And these spirit beings, these in this case, demons, demonic beings are the four winds that are stirring up Gentile nations. And this shouldn't be a surprise. Daniel chapter 10 talks about angelic warfare between Michael and a demon over the airspace of Persia, modern-day Iran, and that there's these conflicts, these great angelic conflicts that are taking place, but definitely there are demonic beings that are behind the political forces, the political powers that be in Gentile nations. And that's what's being described here in verse 2. The chaos of the Gentile nations is being stirred up by demonic beings that are behind the scene. Now we couldn't know this except for the Bible, right? We're grateful to know this. It's not just people doing things. Behind these political powers in our world, behind the cultures of nations, are demonic forces stirring things up. Now, out of that great sea, verse 3, you have four great beasts coming up, different from one another, and they're all pictured as animals. So we'll just briefly go through. Verse 4, the first was like a lion, had wings like an eagle. Not a lion, but like a lion, okay? And wings of an eagle. Now this signifies again Babylon, just like the head of gold. Verse 5, you see the second beast resembling a bear. It was raised up on one side, had three ribs in its mouth. So not a bear, but resembling a bear, like a bear. And this signified Medo Persia. Verse 6, third, right? The third one, as he keeps looking, looks like a leopard. It has on its back four wings of a bird. This is Alexander the Great and his four generals, right? And his rapid conquest. And then, of course, verse 7, he keeps looking and he sees a fourth beast. Now, this one's not like anything that we have in our world, like a lion or a leopard or something like that. This one is just a dreadful and terrifying, extremely strong, large iron teeth. It's not likened to any exact animal that we know of in our world. He says different from all the beasts that were before it had ten horns. These are ultimately ten contemporary kings that will rule the whole world. So we're moving toward globalism at this stage, and this will eventually be the condition, ten spheres of rule in our world. And he's contemplating those horns in verse 8, and it says, Another horn, a little one, came up. This is going to be the Antichrist, right? And three of the first horns are pulled out, so he's going to defeat three of these kings. And he utters great boasts and so forth. He's talked about elsewhere. This is the individual known as the Antichrist. Then we have this setup in verses 9 and 10 in the throne room of God, the God the Father taking his seat. And you read a bunch of descriptions of his judgment base. His throne is ablaze with flames, wheels burning with fire, river of fire flowing out from before him, thousands and on thousands attending him, the court sat, books were opened. So obviously, legal uh judgment is about to ensue, particularly on that eleventh horn, as described in verses 11 and 12. But let's so let's come now to verse 13 to see how it transpires and relates to the session of Christ, which he is now currently seated at the right hand of the Father. Daniel says, I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming. Now, this is the origin of the term son of man, and we know this is the Messiah. This, in fact, is the term that Jesus used to refer to himself over 150 times. It's the most common title he used to refer to himself. What does this title mean? It's rooted here in Daniel 7, and it means the Son related to mankind. The Son related to mankind. In other words, if we trace his genealogy as Luke did, Luke chapter 3, verse 23 through 38, we find that his genealogy is traced all the way back to Adam. Adam is the very last person named in Luke chapter 3, and it's the genealogy of a Messiah through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David, all the way back. He takes us all the way to Adam there. So this is the origin of that term, the Son of Man. And you see him in verse 13, he comes up to the ancient of days, he's presented before him, so he's presented before the Father, and to him that is to the Son of Man, the Son related to mankind, was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him. That's global, right? That's every person on earth, or people from every people group on earth. His dominion is an everlasting dominion. His dominion is one which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. So again, we have the five kingdoms, right?

Beastly Kingdoms Versus Human Kingdom

SPEAKER_00 9:35

You have four animal kingdoms, and then you have a fifth kingdom. Is it an animal kingdom? No, it's a son of man kingdom.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

In the Bible, in Genesis, God creates on the sixth day animals to inhabit the land, and he makes man. And he makes man in his own what? Image and likeness. See, man is the only thing that's made in God's image and likeness. What is the significance that the four Gentile kingdoms, Babylon, Medo, Persia, Greece, and Rome, which are we still live under these regimes today, why is it that they are picked as pictured as animals? What's the significance of that versus the significance of the fifth kingdom pictured as being the kingdom of a son of man, a human kingdom? The significance seems to be that these four kingdoms are less less than the fifth kingdom, in the sense that they are oppressive, they're not fit places for humans to live, that what we basically live in now are beastly kingdoms. Kingdoms that oppress man, that attempt to dominate man, control man, suppress man, unfair, corrupt, chaotic systems. That's what you live in. So if you ever get frustrated in this world with the political powers that be, and we have more freedom than any country on earth, even though we're losing it. But still we have more. But if you ever get frustrated, you know why. It's because behind the political powers that be are demonic forces that are stirring up the political powers of our world to cause chaos and bring confusion and oppression into our lives.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas. If you would like to see the visuals that went along with today's sermon, you can find those on Rumble and on YouTube under Spokane Bible Church. That is where Jeremy is the pastor and teacher. We hope you found today's lesson productive and useful in growing closer to God and walking more obediently with him. If you found uh this podcast to be useful and helpful, then please consider rating us in your favorite podcast app. And until next time, we hope you have a blessed and wonderful day.