The Four Beasts and The Ancient of Days

Daniel 7. In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions passed through his mind as he was lying on his bed.

! He wrote down the substance of his dream. Daniel said, In my vision at night I looked, and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea.

Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea. The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off, and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a man, and the heart of a man was given to it.

And there before me was a second beast which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, Get up and eat your fill of flesh.

After that I looked, and there before me was another beast, one that looked like a leopard. And on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. This beast had four heads, and it was given authority to rule.

After that, in my vision at night, I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast, terrifying and frightening and very powerful.

It had large iron teeth. It crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns.

While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them, and three of the first horns were uprooted before it.

This horn had eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth that spoke boastfully. As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat.

His clothing was as white as snow. The hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze.

A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him. Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.

The court was seated, and the books were opened. Then I continued to watch because of the boastful words the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain, and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire.

The other beasts had been stripped of their authority, but were allowed to live for a period of time. In my vision at night, I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven.

He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory, and sovereign power.

All peoples, nations, and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

I, Daniel, was troubled in spirit, and the visions that passed through my mind disturbed me. I approached one of those standing there and asked him the true meaning of all this.

So he told me and gave me the interpretation of these things. The four great beasts are four kingdoms that will rise from the earth. But the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever.

Yes, forever and ever. Then I wanted to know the true meaning of the fourth beast, which was different from all the others, and most terrifying with its iron teeth and bronze claws.

The beast that crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. I also wanted to know about the ten horns on its head and about the other horn that came up, before which three of them fell.

The horn that looked more imposing than the others, and that had eyes and a mouth that spoke boastfully. As I watched, this horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them.

Until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom. He gave me this explanation.

The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it. The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom.

After them, another king will arise, different from the earlier ones. He will subdue three kings. He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws.

The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times, and half a time. But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever.

Then the sovereignty, power, and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.

This is the end of the matter. I, Daniel, was deeply troubled by my thoughts, and my face turned pale, but I kept the matter to myself.

Well, our culture is infatuated with the end of the world.

Think of all the movies that are about that subject, about the end of the world. I brainstormed and I came up with a few. 2012.

Have you ever seen that? At some point, she wanted the world to end. It was so long and boring. Independence Day, the Book of Eli, Armageddon, Contagion, Twelve Monkeys, I Am Legend, Asteroid, Matrix, Battle of Los Angeles, signs.

I could have kept going and going and going. You get the picture when aliens, asteroids, robots, viruses, nuclear holocaust, floods aren't threatening us.

We're doing okay. But people are fascinated with the possibility that the world will end and how it will end. And they have all sorts of ideas about how that's going to be.

And you could talk to people. This isn't just Hollywood. This is normal. People are fascinated with this. There are some people out there who will say it will never end or something like that.

But most people at least wonder about it. And maybe they wonder about it more than they admit. But there's a couple of things that, whether you're in Hollywood or you're just talking to someone off the street or one of your friends, most unbelievers have a couple of ideas that are always in common when they're thinking about the end of the world.

The first is that they think somehow life will go on. Humanity as it is will survive somehow. And the second point is we'll survive because we'll have done something.

We'll have pulled ourselves together. The better part of our nature will come out or we'll join arms. Somehow we will overcome and survive because of something in and of ourselves.

But is that how it's going to be? That's what man thinks. But Daniel 7 and the rest of Scripture tells us something very different.

God says very differently. Daniel 7 says humanity as it is won't survive. Going on in their own ways, they're not going to survive.

And those who do survive aren't going to save themselves. They're going to be saved. They're going to be saved. So imagine now you're sitting in God's theater.

And you have your popcorn and whatever else. And the lights go out. And in Daniel 7, God presents his version of where everything is going.

What's the story of how things are going to end eventually? And how we're going to get there? And obviously it's a very selected history.

Very selected prophecy. It doesn't tell us everything that we would possibly want to know. But it tells us what we need to know. And so as we sit down, the first characters that come on the screen are these four beasts.

The four beasts. So where do the four beasts come from? Do you remember? They come out of the sea. Look at verse 2. Daniel said, In my vision at night, I looked and there before me were the four winds of heaven churning up the great sea.

And four great beasts, each different from the other, came up out of the sea. Now the sea in the Bible and in the ancient world was the symbol for chaos.

So when an ancient Israelite thought of the sea, he thought of a place where monsters lived. It was someplace terrible. The psalmist talks about the Leviathan, some sort of monstrous fish or something that frolicked in the sea.

The psalmist talked about the sea as a place of unrest and chaos. So remember in Psalm 46, and I'm sure we're going to be singing this hymn fairly soon.

But though the mountains fall into the sea, and though the waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging, we will not fear. So basically, though everything is disturbed and there's chaos all around and there's no stable ground, we won't be afraid.

The sea is where everything came from. Remember Genesis chapter 1 verse 2. Now the earth was formless and empty.

Darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. So you have these chaotic, dark, formless, wild waters and the Spirit of God is hovering over them.

And he's, by God's power, going to bring order to the chaos. And so God says, let there be light. And there was light. Well, the sea is more than that.

It's a symbol of mankind also in rebellion. So the sea is sort of like the opposite of God in a lot of ways. It's chaos and God is a God of order.

And so here, what is the height of chaos and disorder now? It's man, the image of God. The image of God, the prince of creation, created by God to rule his world.

Now that man is in rebellion against the Lord. So we have a sort of an opposite picture. In Revelation 4, you have a picture of God sitting on his throne.

And before his throne, there's a great glass sea, a sea of glass. And it's clear as crystal. So use your imagination. What would a great sea of glass look like?

Be completely smooth and calm. And that's where God is ruling. Where God's way is the way things are done.

Everything is calm. Everything is as it should be. There's perfect order and goodness. But the earth is full of rebellion. And so out of the sea comes these four beasts.

And notice in verse 4, it's the four winds of heaven that are blowing. The ultimate origin, as we just talked about before in our worship. The ultimate origin of these beasts of government is not man.

It's God. And so the winds of heaven are churning up the sea. And now the sea is tossing and turning. And out of this tumult, out of this foaming and crashing, there comes the first beast.

And it was like a lion. And it had the wings like an eagle. And so the idea is it's ferocious. And it's swift. And this is a picture of Babylon in her prime.

She's the king of the beast. She's one of the kings of the air. Remember, Babylon was the head of gold. And so this is Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar.

So Babylon was unstoppable. It was swift. And conquering other kingdoms and conquering men. But then something happened.

Did you read what happened? The lion did something very strange. It stood up on two feet. Its wings were torn off of it. What does that mean?

Well, I think it means that the lion stopped prowling about. The lion stopped moving. Stopped conquering. And the heart of a man was put into it.

It was domesticated. It didn't act like a lion anymore. Instead, it became civil. It became soft. It became genteel, even. And so verse 1 tells us that it was during the time of Belshazzar that Daniel has this dream.

And under Belshazzar, Babylon grew fat and lazy. It rested on its laurels. It became soft. Remember Daniel 5. Belshazzar is having a feast with all these guys.

And meanwhile, the Medes and the Persians are knocking on the door. They are getting ready to come in. And so the lion has become a man. Now under the screen, a second beast appears.

And it's like a bear. But it's a very interesting bear. It's deformed. It's hunched up. It's lifted up on one side. So one of its size is bigger.

It's more powerful. It's stronger than the other. And it has these three ribs in his mouth. And no one is quite sure what that is. They think it's probably three kingdoms that this bear has already devoured.

So what does this beast, this bear, represent? Well, I'm fairly confident that it's the Medo-Persian Empire.

The Medes and the Persians were two groups of people that lived in, it would be northern Iraq or Iran. And they formed an alliance.

They came together. And so they became one nation under one king under Cyrus. But the Persians were far stronger than the Medes.

That's why you don't ever hear of the Median Empire. You hear of the Persian Empire. Because the Persians were the stronger half. They were the stronger. And so that's why the bear is raised up on one side.

One side is stronger than the other. And so out of nowhere, out of the heavens, out of the sky, a voice rings out, Get up and eat your fill of flesh.

And this is very important. Who's in charge of all these beasts? It's God. God is telling this beast what to do. He is in ultimate control.

So he raises up one beast. He tears off the wings. He gives the heart of a man to this beast. And then he tells this bear to get up and eat. And so the kingdoms of man, and this is the theme of Daniel, isn't it?

The kingdoms of man are not above, beyond God's control. Nebuchadnezzar found that out, didn't he? Belshazzar found that out. And you guys, all of you, can count on that.

Whatever is going on out there, no matter how wild and you can't make sense of it, There is a God who is above the waters, who is above the chaos, who speaks, and his will is done, and he is in control.

So the sea is still churning and tossing, and Daniel looks again, and in verse 6 he sees a beast that's like a leopard. And it has four wings, like a bird.

So if Babylon was fast and swift to go for the kill, to run and conquer, this beast is even swifter. So everything about this beast is fast.

He's a leopard, and he has four wings. He's very quick. And so it quickly conquered. And then it has this interesting, it has four heads. And so its power was divided between four kings.

And so this beast, it's clear that it represents Greece and the empire of Alexander the Great.

In 336 BC, Alexander the Great inherited the throne of his father, King Philip of Macedon. And so he became the king of Macedonia.

And within 10 years, and this might not blow our minds, but it should, because we're used to thinking of things with airplanes and wheels and engines, and space has shrunk in our day.

But within 10 years, Alexander had conquered all of the territory from Greece to Egypt to the entire Persian Empire.

And he had even crossed into India. And he had created this huge empire. He annihilated the Persian Empire. But then he died suddenly, and his kingdom passed to his four leading generals.

And we're going to be talking about, these men are going to show up, and we're going to talk about Greece in chapter 8. And so that's why this third beast has these four heads.

There's four kings that came out of the empire of Alexander the Great. Now, at last, on the scene comes the greatest, the fourth beast.

And I'm sure many of you know what this beast is supposed to represent. Well, was it a bear? Was it a leopard? Was it a lion? Well, it doesn't say.

But it was absolutely terrifying. We read in Revelation 13 last week that there was a beast that came out of the sea. And if you paid attention, and maybe you can do this later tonight, you can go and you can compare what that beast in Revelation 13 looks like compared to the beast in Daniel chapter 7.

And you'll see that the beast in Revelation 13 is this sort of horrifying conglomeration of all the beasts in Daniel chapter 7. And so maybe that's what this beast looks like.

It's this hodgepodge, destruction, destructive, horrifying animal. Whatever it looks like, the one thing we can say about it is very powerful.

Very powerful. So how powerful was Rome? Well, to put it into the context of this passage, remember there were four kings that came, four kingdoms that came out of Alexander's empire.

And one of them that we're going to hear more and more about, as Daniel goes on, was named Antiochus Epiphanes. And he was cunning, he was powerful, he was strong, he overthrew Jerusalem, he sacrificed pigs on the altar and defiled it.

He is Daniel's premier example of the Antichrist. And so you have this guy, Antiochus Epiphanes. He decided that he wanted to invade Egypt.

He was part of a northern kingdom and he wanted to go down and take Egypt. So he amassed his troops, he marched through Judah, and he's on the edge of Egypt.

He's getting ready to take the first great city in Egypt, Alexandria, and he's on the shore of the Mediterranean. And lo and behold, you see one little ship coming in.

And as he watches, it lands. And one Roman messenger gets out. And that messenger, he came to talk to Antiochus.

And he said, Rome does not want you to invade, Egypt. And Antiochus said, well, let me think about it. Give me some time to consider my options. So you have this picture, right?

Antiochus, this picture of the Antichrist with his huge armies behind him. He's ready to invade Egypt. And there's one Roman messenger standing there saying, we don't want you to do that.

So Antiochus said, well, give me time and let me think about it. And the Roman messenger, this is a true story. He took a stick and he drew a circle right around Antiochus.

And he said, you can't leave that circle until I have your decision. That's where we get the phrase. He drew a line in the sand. Antiochus turned his whole army around and headed straight back north.

So this is the fourth beast. This is Rome. But we see something happen. Out of the beast grew these ten horns.

And this is where things get to be a little, I think, less clear. But in verse 24, it says that these ten horns are ten kings.

And I think we can take from that. They have, there's these ten kingdoms. Each king has their own kingdom. There are ten kingdoms that aren't Rome.

They don't, they're not a part of it or they are part of it. They come from it, but they're not exactly the beast. And so, and the number ten is almost certainly symbolic.

It's a complete number. It's a number of fullness. And so, Daniel is seeing in symbolic form all of the kingdoms that have come, that have been based on, that have derived their power and authority somehow from Rome.

They use Roman ideas. They use Roman thoughts, Roman methods, Roman ideas of power and dominance and control and government. These are all the kingdoms that have been, have based their governance on the ideas of Rome.

And so, we could ask, what nations, what kingdoms does that include? Probably the better question is to ask, what nations doesn't that include?

Our nation is very much based on Roman ideas of rule and power. So, for example, what is our national bird? It's an eagle.

What's on our national seal? An eagle again. Well, why an eagle? Well, because the eagle, for centuries, has been the way nations and countries and kingdoms, have connected themselves back to Rome.

You could do a study on this and look at all the different European symbols and how they picture themselves. And the eagle comes up again and again. Because wherever Roman armies marched, they took their bronze eagle with them.

And so, that eagle was a symbol of the power and the military might of Rome. And so, where that eagle was, that's where Rome was.

It was there in all of its power and authority. So, the United States and many others have tied themselves back to Rome through that symbol.

But more than that, our system of law and order to a large degree is based on Roman ideas. So, let me ask you, have you heard of the Senate?

Have you heard of checks and balances? Separation of power? Filibusters? Term limits? The electoral college?

These things are part and parcel of our, the way we do things. And they came from Rome. It's Roman ideas, Roman institutions.

And so, I think what Daniel has seen is out of the fourth beast comes many nations. these are the ten horns that grow out of its head. But then, there's one last horn to come.

One last king. The eleventh horn. Look at verse eight. While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them and three of the first horns were uprooted before it.

This horn had eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth that spoke boastfully. So this horn, this little horn, the first thing that is describing it is has eyes like a man.

And this is very important to remember. He is only a man. He speaks boastfully. He speaks very arrogantly. He's obviously very powerful. powerful, but he has eyes like a man.

And in the Bible, the eyes are the picture of knowledge and of thought and of spirit. And so God's eyes are said to roam throughout the earth and nothing can be hidden from his eyes.

God is omniscient. God knows all things. But this horn is only a man. He has eyes like a man. He's not supernatural, even though people are tempted to think so. He's not omniscient, but he is supremely wicked.

He speaks boastfully. He claims outrageous things for himself. He claims that he's even a God or the God. So look over at verse 25 in Romans or in Daniel chapter 7.

He will speak against the most high and oppress the saints and try to change the set times and the laws. So this is a man that is completely lawless.

He is going to overturn all the set times. He wants to undo all of God's sovereign power and reign and all of the laws. He wants to overturn all of God's rule of creation.

So he's this figure, the supreme figure of man and rebellion, of chaos entering into God's world. He's the very antithesis to the Lord Jesus who is the servant of the Lord, who lived to serve and extend God's kingdom.

So this man is the exact opposite. He's the antichrist. Paul called him the man of lawlessness. And do you see why? He wants to overturn everything.

He's not interested in overturning one or two things. He wants to overturn everything. He's a law to himself. And Paul said he will oppose and exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped.

So it's not just he doesn't like our God. He doesn't like any God. And so he sets himself up in God's temple proclaiming himself to be God.

So this little horn sees himself as a God and he wants to be worshipped as a God and he claims to be God. He recognizes no authority except himself. And so he is the very incarnation of all human sinfulness.

So remember in the garden Adam decided that he wanted to know good and evil for himself on his own terms. He wanted to be his own God decide for himself how he should live.

And so from that point on sin has reigned in power and men in their rebellion want to be God even though they aren't God. So men were given dominion over this creation.

And Daniel chapter 7 shows us what men do with their dominion. They're beasts. They destroy and hurt. And so we've twisted it.

We've turned it. And we become beasts and we expect people to bow down to us instead of using our dominion and authority to bring worship to God where our desire for power and praise drives us sinful men to fight against God.

We want his throne and we can't have it and so we rage. And so the power of lawlessness Paul said is already at work. It's already at work in every sinner's heart.

And it will come to a climactic fruition in the single man. And whatever else he will be he will not be we will not be safe from him.

We will not be safe from him because at the heart of his agenda he wants to destroy God's people. Look at verse 21. As I watched this horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them.

And verse 25 says he will oppress the saints and the saints will be handed over to him for time times and half a time. So the government under the Antichrist will wage war against God's people.

We saw that last week in Revelation 13. It says the beast will be given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. He who has the ear let him hear.

If anyone is to go into captivity into captivity he will go. If anyone is to be killed with a sword with a sword he will be killed. Brothers and sisters it's very important for us to come to grips with the fact that that's talking about us.

If we're destined for captivity we will go into captivity. And if we are destined for the sword we will die by the sword. And to be honest this is one of my greatest fears.

This is one of these things that I wrestle with personally. Like at least I'm picking something really big. But that I will live to see these days.

Or that my children will have to live to see them. Because it's widespread. It's total. It's global persecution. Listen to Revelation 11.

It's talking about the two witnesses who are a picture of the church as they are witnessing to the world. And it says now when they had finished their testimony the beast that comes up from the abyss will attack them and overpower them and kill them.

Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city for three and a half days men from every people tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial.

The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts. So brothers and sisters before the end we have to come to grips with this.

The church will be nearly killed so to speak. And we'll have to God will have to raise it from the dead because it will be so bad. And that is why Jesus says when the Son of Man returns will he find faith on the earth?

It's not going to be like there's just so many Christians. It's going to be hard. So are you ready for those days? They're coming.

Perhaps we'll see them. Perhaps to the sword we will go. Perhaps we'll die like Jacob who put his feet up on his bed and went away and slept.

And I hope so. But whatever, it will eventually happen. God has told us. And so we need to prepare ourselves by knowing this is coming, thinking about it.

Now how can we have hope? How can we have hope? How can we continue to believe and fight against this fear and live faithfully to the end?

Because that's what Daniel's all about, living faithful and hard and difficult circumstances. Well, the first thing is we've got to remember that that little horn is only a man.

He's only a man. As bad as he is, and as bad as he's going to be, he's only a man. He might appear supernatural, but he's not. So I'm reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's biography, and I told you about him a couple weeks ago how he was a German pastor, theologian, who opposed Adolf Hitler.

And to be honest, it is hard reading this book. It's hard, because I know it's true. But I keep on telling myself the simple truth that Hitler, as bad as he was, he was only a man.

He ended up dead in a bunker underneath Berlin. Russian soldiers burned his corpse. He died like every other man.

And every bad thing must come to an end. The Antichrist, as bad as he is, will come to his own end. It's just a man. He'll die like the rest.

That's one thing. But God gives us more than that. Because at the height of the Antichrist's rule, he's casting down God's people.

The saints are given over to his hands for time, times, and half a time. And we'll talk about what that means later. And they're handed over to him. And at the height of his power, another figure enters the scene.

And this is why I said at the beginning, it's not, those who survive and who make it through the end of the world are not going to be because they did something. They're going to be rescued.

They're going to be saved. So look at verse 8. It's just out of nowhere. As I looked, thrones were set in place and the Ancient of Days took his seat.

So into the scene of devastation and loss and destruction for God's people, who comes into the picture but God himself?

And the courtroom is set up. And the king and the judge takes his seat. And his appearance is amazing. He's dazzling white, white hair.

He's, he's called the Ancient of Days. It means he's full of years. He's full of wisdom. His clothing is like snow. He's pure. He's infinitely wise. And notice his throne.

It's burning and blazing with fire and a river of fire is flowing out of his throne. So he's wise. He's holy and he's angry.

But does he have power? It says thousands upon thousands attend him. 10,000 times 10,000 stand before him.

So do the math. Millions and millions serve him. 10,000 times 10,000 is 100 million. That is a lot of angels.

So does he have a power? Does he have power to save? Does he have power to overthrow? Throw? Well, he has 100 million angels attending court that day.

And the court was seated and the books were open. And what happened? Look at the middle of verse 11. I kept looking. Daniel's looking.

I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire. How was it done? Who did it? Why? Nothing said.

It's just the books are opened and the beast is destroyed and thrown into the fire. Turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 19. Revelation 19.

And we'll begin reading at verse 19. Verse 19. If we were to back up and read what happened before, you'd see that a white rider came.

And on his robe and on his thigh was the name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So verse 19. Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered to make war against the rider on the horse and his army.

But the beast was captured and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshipped his image.

The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. The rest of them were killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider on the horse and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.

So both and Daniel and a revelation there is something missing. Do you see what was missing in both of those accounts? There's no big battle.

There's no big battle. There's only slaughter. There's no fight. There's no doubt or question of the end. When the white rider the king of kings the lord of lords when he comes the battle ends.

Paul says he will destroy the lawless one with the splendor of his coming. His coming will be so glorious that it will destroy his opponent.

So when Jesus shows up the fight is over. So why can we go on without fearing? Because we're waiting for a day when our lord will descend and when he descends it will be over.

It's not in question. The other day I was watching a thing about the 1985 Chicago Bears and maybe some of you know how good they were.

In Super Bowl 20 it was the Chicago Bears against the New England Patriots and the Patriots were completely overmatched. At halftime they had negative 19 yards of offense.

That's pretty good. Anyways one of the Bears was saying on the very first play of the game the Patriots quarterback came to the line of scrimmage and he said he looked in that guy's eyes and his eyes were as big as saucers.

He was afraid. He was scared to death. And that Chicago Bears player said I knew when I saw it that we had won the game. They hadn't run a single play and the game had been decided already.

And when Jesus shows up the game is over. The rebellion is over. It's ended. When Jesus arrives it's not going to be to carry a cross. It's going to descend in glory.

It's not going to be to suffer. He's not going to hide his glory. He's going to be praised. And there's not going to be anyone or anything that will be able to stand before him. Before him every knee will bow. Either willingly or forcefully.

And he will rescue his people completely. Now some of you are trying to put Jesus off. and you're saying well maybe I will believe.

Maybe I'll get right with him later. Maybe later. But I'll put him off for now. Do you see how completely backwards that is? You think you're judging him.

You think you're weighing him and measuring him. But you're in the scales. you're the fly saying hmm I wonder what I'll do with this elephant.

Isn't the question what is Jesus going to do with you much more important? So he's coming and he will destroy the kingdoms of men. And he will destroy the antichrist not in hand-to-hand combat but just by showing up.

And so what will he do for you on that day? Will he come as your savior? Or will he come as your destruction? See now there's grace.

There's grace still. So there's hope. There's time. There's hope. And if you give up, if you surrender, if you fall into Jesus' hands, he will save you.

Because Jesus is still saying come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Let's pray. Our Lord, we thank you that you are full of grace and full of power.

That you are full of mercy. Because we know that not a single one of us would be on your side unless you called us and saved us, you brought us to yourself and rescued us.

So we know it's all of grace. And yet we thank you that it is all of grace because we couldn't have done anything to save ourselves. We needed to be rescued.

Thank you for rescuing so many of us. And thank you that whatever we live through, whatever happens in this world, whatever apparent chaos and death and destruction that we see, that you are still on high, that you rule over the sons of men, and Lord Jesus, you are coming again.

And we thank you that when you come, we will come with you. So Lord, I pray that you would work in our own hearts, make that hope to be real for us so that we would even purify ourselves now, that we would take that hope and put it inside of us and own it and live on it and cherish it, and that that would have a purifying effect so that we would live less for this world, less for the things of this world that are passing by, and live more and more for the coming eternal day.

Pray that you would save sinners for Jesus' sake. Amen. Well, next week, Lord willing, we're going to address Daniel chapter 7 again, because