Episode 60 – Daniel and the Coming World Empires Part 2

Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script: (Bible quotes from the God’s Word Translation)

Your Majesty, you had a vision. You saw a large statue. This statue was very bright. It stood in front of you, and it looked terrifying. The head of this statue was made of fine gold. Its chest and arms were made of silver. Its stomach and hips were made of bronze. Its legs were made of iron. Its feet were made partly of iron and partly of clay.

Daniel, Chapter 2, verses 31 through 33, God’s Word Translation

In my visions at night I, Daniel, saw the four winds of heaven stirring up the Mediterranean Sea. Four large animals, each one different from the others, came out of the sea. The first animal was like a lion, but it had wings like an eagle… I saw a second animal. It looked like a bear… After this, I saw another animal. It looked like a leopard. On its back it had four wings, like the wings of a bird. The animal also had four heads. ... After this, I saw a fourth animal in my vision during the night. It was terrifying, dreadful, extraordinarily strong, and had large iron teeth. … It acted differently from all the other animals that I had seen before.

Daniel, Chapter 7, verses 2 through 7, God’s Word Translation

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VK: Hi! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m here today with RD Fierro, author, founder of Crystal Sea Books, and part-time air quality engineer. He’s the one who schedules the spring and fall tune ups on the air conditioning system. Today, however, he’s set those duties aside as we approach the end of a series looking at Biblical prophets and prophecy with this series featuring a brief study into the book of Daniel. The amazing prophetic accuracy of the book of the book of Daniel is one of the strongest indicators that the Bible must have a supernatural origin. As we’ve discussed in our last couple of episodes Daniel gave us an entire series of prophecies about world empires that would control the Mideast and much of the surrounding geography. RD would you like to give us a brief overview of what we’ve learned about these world empires from Daniel?

RD: I’d love to. In brief, last time, we saw that Daniel prophesied that the parts of the world that we would refer to today as the Mideast, western Asia, Europe, and north Africa would fall under a series of four prominent empires. But Daniel didn’t just make prophetic announcements about the empires in one place in his book. He actually mentions the same series of four world empires in three separate chapters, but we get different details about these empires from his three separate pronouncements. The four empires in chronological order were the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, the Greeks, and finally the Romans. On our last couple of episodes of Anchored by Truth we talked about the first three empires, so today we’re going to focus on the last empire, the Romans. And we’re going to briefly discuss why these four specific empires were important to God’s unfolding plan of redemption.

VK: All this sounds fascinating but before we get too deep into the discussion for today, how if we start out on a lighter note. Let’s hear a bit of humor about one of the most famous episodes from Daniel’s life with one of Crystal Seas’ Life Lessons with a Laugh. This one emphasizes that one of the reasons Daniel was such an effective Biblical prophet was because of his faithfulness.

---- Life Lessons – Daniel 4 – Daniel and the Lion’s Den

VK: Ok. We learned a number of things from that lesson. First, that there are a lot of different species that descended from the pair of felines that Noah carried on the ark…

RD: ... And some people don’t like any of them ...

VK: And second that even though Daniel was a very senior court official in both the Babylonian and Persian empires that doesn’t mean he lived a life free of – as the Bible puts it - tribulation. I guess that’s a good reminder for us today.

RD: Yes. The lion’s den episode in Daniel’s life actually occurred when he was serving as, more-or-less, the top administrator in the Persian court. So even though he was in a very significant that didn’t mean that it wasn’t important for Daniel to remain faithful to the Lord. It’s interesting to note in that story that it was his faith that got him into trouble. And it was his faith that brought him safely through the trouble. Those are both great lessons for us today.

VK: Now if I remember correctly the lion’s den episode happened after the Persians had conquered the Babylonians, right? That means that Daniel had already seen part of his prophecies about the succession of world empires come true. So at the time Daniel was in the lion’s den it was shortly after 539 B.C. because that’s when the Medes and Persians conquered Babylon. But the Greeks wouldn’t appear on the scene as third empire for another 200 years. And the Romans wouldn’t be in control of Palestine for almost another 300 years after that. So the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecies covered a historical period of over 500 years. Do I have that right?

RD: As I sometimes say in the Life Lessons, exactamundo. That’s one of the reasons that the book of Daniel is so significant to the demonstration that Bible has a supernatural origin. Daniel lived a very long life. Some commentators believe he probably lived to be over 90. That was a very long life in those days…

VK: It’s still pretty long today…

RD: True dat. But even if Daniel had lived to be 100 he still died at least 450 years before the Roman general conquered Palestine in 63 B.C. becoming the last of the empires in the succession of four that Daniel foresaw. Now it’s important to note that Daniel had prophesied that empire number two would be the Medo-Perian empire and empire number three would be the Greek empire. We know that because in Daniel chapter 8 Daniel gave us those names specifically. But Daniel didn’t know, or at least he never recorded, the national identity of the fourth empire which we learn from history as the Romans.

VK: Well, if Daniel didn’t mention the Romans by name how can we be sure that his prophecy was referring to the Romans as the final empire in his succession of four?

RD: For a variety of reasons.

VK: Such as?

RD: First, even though Daniel didn’t mention Rome by name in his prophecies he did provide us a number of details about the 4th empire. For instance, in Daniel chapter 2 Daniel uses the metal iron to distinguish the fourth empire from the preceding three which had been associated, in order, with gold, silver, and bronze. In Chapter 7 Daniel says that, “After this, I saw a fourth animal in my vision during the night. It was terrifying, dreadful, extraordinarily strong, and had large iron teeth. It devoured and crushed its victims and trampled whatever was left. It acted differently from all the other animals that I had seen before.” So, obviously the primary distinguishing characteristic of this empire would be its strength, power, and ferocity. Gold, silver, and even bronze are used to make jewelry or decorative objects. But iron is valuable because of its utility, and its strength is what gives it its utility. We know from history that Rome was the most powerful empire that ever occupied Palestine, at least in the time period of Biblical history which is obviously what the Bible is concerned with.

VK: In fact, it’s fair to say that each of the four empires grew in size geographically. The Greek empire was larger than the Medo-Persian empire but the Greeks never occupied much of Europe. At its peak the Roman empire stretched from modern day England all the way to Syria including the entirety of Africa’s Mediterranean coast. And it became that large entirely through military conquest, not by peaceful acquisitions.

RD: Exactly. It was sometimes said that Rome lost some battles but never lost a war – at least until its internal degeneration made it vulnerable to external conquest.

VK: Maybe another lesson for today.

RD: Maybe. Anyway, a second reason we can be sure that Daniel was talking about the Roman empire as the fourth empire is because history tells us that Rome conquered the four daughter kingdoms that comprised the Greek empire after Alexander the Great’s death. We talked last time about the fact that Alexander the Great died so young that his two sons were too little to succeed him on his throne. They were murdered in the power struggle that happened after Alexander’s death and his empire was split among four of his commanders: Seleucus, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Cassander.

VK: Anything else?

RD: Yes. In Daniel chapter 2 Daniel gives us this really interesting detail regarding the 4th empire. In the vision of a huge, human-like metal statue that Daniel was describing he says that the first three empires are all represented by a single metal – gold, silver, or bronze. But he says that the final empire starts out as legs of iron but the feet are partly of iron and partly of clay. So, this final empire is initially homogenous but as it progresses it turns into a sort of composite. But notice the composite elements aren’t the kind that can mix and form a uniform material. Iron and clay can’t mix, so any structure made of the two is going to be inherently brittle or unstable. And that’s a very good description of the progression of the Roman Empire and especially of the military component of the empire.

VK: You mean because the Roman legions were initially composed of – well – Romans and their countrymen? In fact, early in its development as a major world power the Romans used to conduct something called the comitia centuriata. It was essentially an assembly that served two different functions – voting for elected officials and deciding on major issues of public importance such as new laws or whether to go to war. And if the voters decided war was necessary they began the military organizational decisions at the same time. In effect, early in their history the Romans who decided that war was necessary would be largely the same ones who would go and fight that war.

RD: Yes. Today we would say that the people voting that war was necessary would have “skin in the game.” Needless to say that before the nation went to war the broad populace thought that it was necessary. They had not only voted for it, but they knew they would likely have to go fight.

VK: But as the empire expanded eventually the decisions about whether to fight a war were transferred to elected officials in the Roman Senate and the elected officials eventually began taxing the people to pay for a standing army. But even that practice didn’t last and the Romans started using men from conquered territories to man the legions. Eventually, a larger and larger proportion of the Roman legions were composed of soldiers from their conquered provinces many of whom weren’t volunteers but conscripts, citizens of non-Roman countries that were forced into military service on behalf of Rome. And that sort of military dynamic actually began to be reflected in the political reality of the Roman Empire as well.

RD: Precisely. So the description of the fourth empire that Daniel saw in the great statue – initially a strong, unified power that descends into a power that becomes fragmented and brittle – is reflected exactly in the history of the Roman Empire. There’s actually a great book with a somewhat questionable title by Victor Davis Hansen called Culture and Carnage that talks about the difference that culture makes in military success. The early Roman military success was enhanced considerably because the people actually serving in the military were committed to whatever war was being conducted. But that dynamic changed through time where the broad populace was no longer directly affected by much of military’s operations. And the soldiers themselves had a much lower level of commitment to the causes they were being asked to fight.

VK: So, like iron and clay parts of the empire were no longer able to meld together. The central government in Rome and the provinces increasingly were at odds with one another. The Roman legions were no longer composed of citizens who were committed to the military campaigns they were being asked to conduct. As history has well documented eventually the Romans in Rome were more concerned with “bread and circuses” than they were with the stability of their nation.

RD: Right. All these characteristics point to the fact that, even though Daniel didn’t mention Rome by name in any of his prophecies, the fourth empire was unmistakably the Roman Empire. Now next time we want to talk more at length about the reason God gave Daniel his visions about this sequence of empires, but, just as a bit of a teaser, each of these empires played a critical role in preparing the world for the arrival of the Jesus, the Messiah. In God’s providence, each of these empires contributed something important in not only preparing for the arrival of the Messiah but in enabling the subsequent spread of the Gospel in a manner that fulfilled God’s promise to bring the Gospel to the whole world. For instance, as sad as it is, the Romans are the power that crucified Jesus and without Jesus’ sacrificial atoning death, God would not have the basis upon which to forgive sin. God is a God of love, but he is also a God of truth and holiness. So when Adam rebelled against God, God couldn’t just excuse or gloss over that rebellion. As Romans 6:23 puts it “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

VK: That’s one of those mysteries in scripture that just astounds me every time I think about it. Actually, if you think about it very much it will give you a headache. From the beginning God had a plan to redeem mankind but that plan involved God himself, through His only Son, Jesus, paying the price of that redemption. So, God brought the Roman Empire into existence at least partially to produce an essential step in redemption, the death of the Messiah, Jesus’s death. But the worst act of all time, killing Jesus, led to the greatest blessing of all time, salvation for Jesus’s followers. Makes you want to cry and sing praises all at the same time. Sounds like a perfect time to close with prayer. Since Father’s Day is right around the corner, how about if today we pray for all the fathers out there?

---- PRAYER FOR FATHERS

VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!”

(Bible Quotes from the God’s Word Translation)

Daniel, Chapter 2, verses 31 through 4, God’s Word Translation

https://www.adefenceofthebible.com/2018/10/14/alexander-the-great-conquered-the-known-world-but-he-spared-jerusalem-why/

https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/1293/the-arrival-of-the-king