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PERSECUTION THEN, PERSECUTION NOW

We’ve been standing on the beach all this week, watching the tide roll in . . . and bringing with it the four psychedelic beasts of Daniel chapter 7. A lion with wings, then a bear with ribs – in its mouth, a leopard with FOUR wings (and four heads to match), and then a great and terrible creature with iron teeth and razor-sharp claws.

And you know, as we read about the ferocity of these ruling powers, some of the accompanying human stories are just very wrenching — especially in describing how God’s people have fared as tyrants came and went. There was one story where warriors burst into a little church where Christians were trying to worship. They just flat-out killed five of them, and left 40 others bleeding on the floor. The small sanctuary had long white curtains; after the primitive attack, the pale cloth was spattered with the blood of Christ’s followers.

If you think that martyrdom story was written on papyrus and then hidden in a clay jar somewhere in Judea, think again. What I just described was reported in the Los Angeles Times on Monday, March 18, 2002. . In Islamabad, Pakistan, attackers rushed into the Protestant International Church on a Sunday morning and exploded several hand grenades. Barbara Green, who worked at the U.S. Embassy was killed; so was her 17-year-old daughter, Kristen. Barbara’s husband, Milton, and fifth-grader son, Zack, were injured.

Well, friend, tragically there are a million stories just like that with CNN datelines right here in the 21st century – where a beast with iron teeth wages war against the saints of God. And I picked just that one for a specific reason. We’ve studied an amazing Bible time prophecy that extends from more than 600 years before Christ — during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon — down to more than four hundred years AFTER the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Scholars generally date the fall of the Roman empire around the year 476 A.D., and these twin dreams of Daniel 2 and 7 go well beyond that point.

Here’s the interesting but very sad point. Both of these great, panoramic pictures describe world empires that actually disintegrate in value. They go from good to bad to worse. In Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a great image, a tall, silent giant standing in the shadows, the head was made of gold, the breasts and arms of silver, the belly and thighs of brass, and the legs of iron. Gold, silver, brass, iron. Those metals are getting stronger as you go, but definitely cheaper as well. And here in Daniel 7, you go from a lion — the king of beasts — to a horrifying monster that is extremely powerful, but ruthless in its domination.

In a web site located at “www.christiancourier.com,” author Wayne Jackson writes in an April, 2000 article:

“It is interesting to note that as these empires come and go, there is a degeneration in quality, i.e., from gold to iron.” Then he adds: “It is clear that Daniel ‘was not encouraged to see in history evolutionary progress, but rather the reverse. Modern technological progress in no way invalidates this judgment, for it is international justice, peace and human contentment and fulfillment that are in mind, and in these realms it would be hard to argue that there has been progress.’” That’s quoting from a Joyce Baldwin and her book, Daniel.

And the story I just told, from Islamabad, illustrates that very point. Yes, we now have the Internet and cell phone communications and global positioning satellites to help farmers plant their crops and luxury Lexus automobiles to find the Four Seasons Hotel. You can get on a plane and go from L.A. to Pakistan in less than a day, and of course, you can log onto the Internet from there and instantly take all 26 lessons of our Discover Bible Course with a few keystrokes on your laptop. But war is still war, aggression is still aggression, and religious persecution and tyranny are more present and diabolical than at any time in Planet Earth’s history. If Daniel’s first dream took the world from gold to silver to brass to iron, I would hate to think what we’d be down to by now. We seem to comprehend the idea of religious liberty and freedom of conscience no better today than when Nebuchadnezzar ordered his aides to heat the fiery furnace of persecution up to seven times its original strength.

What’s still very interesting, though, is how the time-line of this prophecy — certainly on a downward spiral as we’ve seen — is uncannily accurate in predicting the major world movements later validated by history. In fact, as we continue to study Daniel chapter 7, we find that even though there are just four global empires, there’s actually another substantial piece of history to measure. In fact, make that two. Here in chapter 7, we’ve already read verse 7, but here it is again:

“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.”

Right away we might think that the ten horns of this beast, of Rome, are part and parcel OF Rome. That’s been the pattern so far, certainly. Babylon had its wings, denoting speed. So did the leopard of Greece. The bear of Medo-Persia was humped up on one side, indicating an imbalance of power. But here in the spectacle and gore of this fourth nocturnal scene, history now seems to indicate that the ten horns on the beast representing Rome might well predict something that exists BEYOND Rome.

That web site we just mentioned, “www.christiancourier. com,” makes that very point. Notice:

“Some suggest that the beast’s ‘ten horns’ are but a figurative representation of the political descendants of the old Roman empire and thus the numeral is not to be pressed.”

Sometimes in Bible study circles we say, “Don’t try to make that parable stand on all fours. Don’t try to make every detail of a picture have a point.” However, here’s the rest of the quote:

“Others assert that when Rome fell in A.D. 476, the result was the formation of TEN literal states or governments. [Thomas] Newton [in his book Dissertations on the Prophecies] says that ‘the number of the kingdoms into which the Roman empire in Europe was originally divided was EXACTLY ten.”

Other historical studies agree with that assessment, by the way. In the Bible commentary used in my own Adventist denomination, the writers even give the list:

“The successive invasion of the Roman empire,” they write, “by numerous Germanic tribes and the replacement of the empire by a number of separate states or monarchies, are well established facts of history. Owing to the fact that a score or more barbaric tribes invaded the Roman Empire, commentators have compiled various lists of the kingdoms that were founded. The following list is representative: Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, Vandals, Suevi, Alamanni, Anglo-Saxons, Heruli, Lombards, Burgundians.”

That’s exactly ten. Some scholars, this commentary admits, put the tribe of the Huns in that list instead of the Alemanni; however, the Huns as a group rather quickly disappeared and never left behind a settled kingdom. In the year 476 A.D., Odoacer — or “Odovacar,” some web sites have it — a chieftain for the Heruli and commander of an army of Germanic mercenaries, first defeated General Orestes in Piacenza, Italy, then captured Rome’s western capital, Ravenna, and finally deposed Emperor Romulus Augustulus. With that turning point, the fourth kingdom had essentially disintegrated; the “Pax Romana,” or vast influence of the “Roman Peace,” backed up by the iron will of the Roman legions, had come to an end. Now instead there were these ten feuding kingdoms. In fact, historian Edward Elliott, in his book, Horae Apocalypticae, and others go down the line and tell us which tribes ended up being the ancestors of which nations today. The Franks are today the country of France, Alemanni is today Germany, the Saxons are English now, and so on.

And the Word of God itself corroborates that the ten horns on the fourth beast are a later continuation of power, holding power AFTER 476 A.D. Here’s Daniel 7, verse 24:

“The ten horns are ten kings who will come FROM this kingdom.”

What becomes rather important now — and we’ll continue this next week — is that this great Bible prophecy, friend, begins to come to our neighborhood. The great spans of time following Rome move into the era of the Christian church. Our forefathers are now in the picture. The infant Christian church, then the church of the medieval ages, the period of the courageous Reformers . . . we’re getting down to all of that. What does the Word of God say about the Body of Christ through these ages of darkness and then renaissance? Here, today, 2005, are there things for us to consider as well?

Let me say again: in both Daniel 2, and here in Daniel 7, the grand story ends in victory for the Lord. After all these beasts paw at the ground and trample the saints, the Ancient of Days takes His seat. Four times in a row, the thrones of men are overthrown, but verse 9 tells us that God’s throne is “flaming with fire, and its wheels . . . all ablaze.” Friend, nobody overthrows God’s throne, and when He sets up His kingdom, the turbulent oceans which bring forth deadly beasts are transformed into a Sea of Glass where God’s children live in safety forever.