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BEASTS, HORNS, AND CROWNS #7

LOOKING IN THE MIRROR FOR CLUES

If you’re one of the millions of Americans who are tuning in every Sunday night to a program called Law & Order: Criminal Intent, there’s a character named Detective Goren. Together with his beautiful — of course — female sidekick, Detective Eames, Vincent D’Onofrio just glides through a crime scene, picking up a broken matchstick here, noticing a stray footprint over there, seeing a stray red thread on a sofa. Almost before the police can string up the yellow tape, he’s gathered together enough clues to have a good idea what happened.

We did a radio program several years ago about the Rosenberg spy case. Young lovers Julius and Ethel had decided to spy for the Soviet Union, and Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass, was in on the ring. And the jury listened in fascination to a story about half a Jell-o box. That’s right. A Harry Gold had half a Jell-o box; David Greenglass had the other half. And when Harry showed up at David’s front door with his half — and also the not-so-mysterious phrase “I come from Julius” — that was the necessary clue so that both men knew they had identified each other. And half a Jell-O box was part of the pile of evidence that enabled prosecuting attorney Irving Saypol to win indictments and death sentences for both Julius and his devoted wife.

Here in this equally intriguing puzzle known as the great vision of Daniel 7, the puzzle pieces have been rather easy to fit together thus far. In fact, I really don’t know of any Bible scholar who doesn’t see the lion as Babylon, the bear as Medo-Persia, the four-headed leopard as Greece, and the terrifying beast of verse 7 as Rome. That’s standard extrapolation; just about every version of the Bible will say as much in the text notes, and so do the commentators and seminary professors. In fact, Daniel 8, which follows immediately, comes right out and gives away half of the answers directly. Medo-Persia and Greece are in the very center of the plot and are explicitly identified by name.

But now, friend, we get into much deeper water — and we remember that Daniel was standing on the edge of a great sea anyway. Right after Beast #4, the empire of Rome, which already had ten significant horns, we move now to verse 8. Here it is:

“While I was thinking about the horns,” Daniel writes, “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.”

The ten horns already there probably represent ten kingdoms that slowly evolved or emerged at the tail end of the Roman Empire. Apparently they’re much more benign as entities in comparison to this “little horn,” which has eyes and can speak and brag about itself.

Over in verse 20, where Daniel is joining NBC’s Detective Goren in trying to figure out all these clues, the aging prophet confesses:

“I also wanted to know about the ten horns on [the fourth beast’s] 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.”

You have to smile when you read this passage in the archaic but very elegant King James. (What we just heard was the New International Version.) Right there in verse 20, the KJV says:

“That horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows.”

Well, that’s colorful, and we enjoy the imagery, but there’s nothing at all amusing about some of the things this “little horn” power does. Here’s verse 21:

“As I watched” — Daniel — “this horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them.”

So this mysterious new world player persecutes the followers of God, the believers. And as we go on over to verse 23 and following, the heavenly being who is explaining all of this to Daniel gives him additional insights. Notice:

“The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth.” All signs point to that being pagan Rome, as we’ve discussed. “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.” Now this is important: “After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings.”

Clearly, then, this newest king IS the so-called “little horn.” He overcomes or uproots three previous “horns” or kings in order to rule himself. And here’s a bit more:

“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.”

It’s no wonder that the feeble prophet can hardly take it all in. “I was deeply troubled by my thoughts,” he writes, “and my face turned pale, but I kept the matter to myself.” For a time, that is; these 2600 years later, Christians everywhere face a great challenge trying to decide where this prophecy is trying to take us. Here in the year 2003, the jury is definitely still out.

Well, friend, our study on this will certainly have to carry over into the next day or two, but let’s call on a Bible detective whose powers of observation would have made him an excellent ally on Law & Order! In his book, God Cares: The Message of Daniel For You and Your Family, C. Mervyn Maxwell points out that right here in Daniel 7, we’re given eight clues so that we can decipher the identity of this “little horn.”

First of all, it clearly comes OUT of, or subsequent to, this fourth beast. Since the fourth beast is Rome, this new entity follows Rome. If Rome’s supremacy ended around 476 A.D., the little horn would gain most of its influence after that date. In fact — clue #2 — it seems to historically come after the ten kings which ALSO came after the unified global empire of Rome.

Hint #3: it was little when it first came up. Hence the common moniker: “the little horn.” But both verse 8 and verse 20 describe its growing power, its domination of the other horns. In fact, for clue #4, we read two times that this little horn will wipe out three other kingdoms in order to make room for itself.

Here’s number five, and it’s a chilling piece of evidence. It has “eyes like the eyes of a man,” and a bragging, prideful mouth. “A big mouth speaking arrogantly,” says the Message paraphrase. Over in II Thessalonians is a passage that many theologians connect back to this Daniel 7 “little horn” entity, and Paul’s description is as follows:

“He [the man of lawlessness] will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.”

Here’s the sixth piece of Scriptural evidence, found in verse 25. This little horn will “wear out the saints of the Most High”; it will be a persecuting power. The same verse also describes how this horn will “think to change the times and the law.” “Try to change the SET times and the law” is how the NIV translation puts it. Eugene Peterson’s Message says: “Try to get rid of sacred worship and moral practice.”

Finally — right as the detectives need to pack up their evidence, get details from the M.E. and the court psychologist and hand over what they have to the prosecutors — there’s an eighth clue, one with an intriguing time-line to it.

“God’s people,” Daniel discovers in verse 25, “will be persecuted by him for a time, two times, half a time.”

Most translators agree that “half a time” and the King James expression, “the dividing of time,” mean the same thing.

Well, speaking of time, our ticking clock tells us we have to carry this over to tomorrow, but the painful reality is this. We already said so yesterday, but if you add up these eight Bible clues, the fairly plain conclusion is that we who are believers are looking at ourselves in the mirror here. The little horn power of Daniel chapter 7 is none other than the Christian church of the Middle Ages. After the civil empire of Rome broke up, and Europe split itself up into ten fragmented kingdoms, the next global entity with any power to it was none other than the Church. In fact, we’ll spend the next couple of days discovering that you can go right down the line with these eight Bible clues, and the numbers add up with tragic but compelling logic. Even the math of verse 25 comes out dead on target; according to many Bible scholars, right down to the very year.

In the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg spy case, young Ruth Greenglass had to testify on behalf of the prosecution, the government, about her own brother’s participation. It was family. It hurts when the Bible predicts abuses and persecution — and then we find out that it was our own Christian church that committed the crimes. But an honest love for our Lord demands that we prayerfully and with humble repentance study all things.

Stay tuned.