Sermon 07.28.2024: Daniel's Four Beasts of the Apocalypse

Spoiler Alert: The four world empires of Daniel's time are depicted as ferocious beasts. In what ways are empires beastly and predatory still today? And what is God's relationship to the powers that be? The apocalyptic writings of Daniel are simply a revelation of God's sovereign rule and love of all God's people. So let the apocalypse be revealed, and may we continue to resist and denounce the beasts that destroy and harm God's beloved creation.

Scripture

Daniel 7:1-18

In the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head as he lay in bed. Then he wrote down the dream: 

I, Daniel, saw in my vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. The first was like a lion and had eagles’ wings. Then, as I watched, its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a human being; and a human mind was given to it. Another beast appeared, a second one, that looked like a bear. It was raised up on one side, had three tusks in its mouth among its teeth and was told, ‘Arise, devour many bodies!’ After this, as I watched, another appeared, like a leopard. The beast had four wings of a bird on its back and four heads; and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the visions by night a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth and was devouring, breaking in pieces, and stamping what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that preceded it, and it had ten horns. I was considering the horns, when another horn appeared, a little one coming up among them; to make room for it, three of the earlier horns were plucked up by the roots. There were eyes like human eyes in this horn, and a mouth speaking arrogantly.

As I watched, thrones were set in place,

  and an Ancient One took his throne;

his clothing was white as snow,

  and the hair of his head like pure wool;

his throne was fiery flames,

  and its wheels were burning fire.

A stream of fire issued

  and flowed out from his presence.

A thousand thousand served him,

  and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him.

The court sat in judgement,

  and the books were opened.

I watched then because of the noise of the arrogant words that the horn was speaking. And as I watched, the beast was put to death, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. As I watched in the night visions,

I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven.

And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him.

To him was given dominion and glory and kingship,

that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. 

His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.

As for me, Daniel, my spirit was troubled within me, and the visions of my head terrified me. I approached one of the attendants to ask him the truth concerning all this. So he said that he would disclose to me the interpretation of the matter: ‘As for these four great beasts, four kings shall arise out of the earth. But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever—for ever and ever.’



Sermon

So the Book of Daniel is more or less divided into halves. The first six chapters of the book introduce and tell the stories of Daniel and his friends who are living in exile in Babylon. 

You’ve heard how Daniel has helped interpret the dreams of the king; how his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednago were thrown into a fiery furnace; and how Daniel himself was thrown into a lion’s den, all of which they survived thanks to their God. 

But now, in chapter seven, after building up our trust on the reliability and faithfulness of this character Daniel, we start getting into some really wild things. We pivot from stories to prophecies and visions. And this time, Daniel is the one dreaming these apocalyptic dreams. 

We understand the apocalypse as something to do with the end times, right? 

The end of the world or the total destruction of the earth. But as Marci mentioned at the beginning of this Daniel series, the word apocalypse is actually just a Greek word meaning to uncover, reveal, lay bare, or disclose. So the apocalyptic literature we read in Daniel and later in the book of Revelation, are uncovering and revealing something to us. 

A few years ago, Adrienne Maree Brown wrote: “Things are not getting worse, they are getting uncovered. We must continue to hold each other tight and pull back the veil.” Pull back the veil. See the world is for what it actually is. And who we are for who we actually are. 

A good and honest apocalypse, a true revelation, can be life-altering and filled with grief, fear, and discomfort. But without it, we cannot be transformed or made new. 

Now, there are some Christians who interpret the apocalyptic writings in scripture as prophecies for the future, a picture of what’s to come. If any of you are familiar with the Left Behind series, that’s the premise of those “books.” 

But most Christians and biblical scholars recognize that the apocalyptic writings were probably not predicting the future, but rather critiquing the present. They are revealing and uncovering what is unjust in their society at the present time, using imagery and allegory. 

And so we get these nightmarish beasts: a lion with eagle’s wings; a bear with tusks; a leopard with four heads and four wings; and something with ten horns, with a little one coming up among them with human eyes and a mouth. 

The vision, as it was depicted in the book Silos Apocalypse, is on our bulletin cover. This was drawn in the year 1109 in Spain. And you can see they’ve gone quite literal with it. 

It is widely accepted, however, that these beasts represented the empires of Babylon, Media, Persia and the Seleucid Greeks, with Antiochus IV as the “small horn” that uproots three others. 

Now, as modern-day readers, we don’t know why these particular beasts were chosen to represent each empire. But if I described a modern-day country as “a bald eagle with talons the size of skyscrapers” what country might I mean? The United States, right! 

Or what if I said, “a panda bear dancing on TikTok”? Some of you might know that I meant China.

What is mysterious and outlandish to us today would’ve been a lot more clear to those reading the book of Daniel in its original context. And Antiochus IV, the small horn that arises from one of the beasts, was an absolute villain—plundering the Jerusalem Temple and persecuting the Jews. He was unliked, not just by the exiles of Israel, but by nearly anyone from this time period according to the history books. 

So when Daniel calls him “a little one coming up among them;” with “eyes like human eyes … and a mouth speaking arrogantly,” people would have recognized who he meant. 

Now, Daniel, who has interpreted dreams for kings before, now needs help interpreting this one. He is so troubled and terrified that he can’t sort it out for himself. So he gets help. 

And I love that. Because often times, when we are afraid, we aren’t able to think clearly or rationally, so enlisting others to help us discern and figure out what we’ve experienced is so important. We need others to help us understand what God is saying and calling us to do. 

In the Presbyterian call process, you can’t just say, “Hey! I wanna be a pastor! 

Let me get ordained online and start a church, and then here I am, just doing it!” You go into a whole process of discernment that includes a community of people: people from your church, from your presbytery, from your seminary, from those who grade your ordination exams, and from a church or organization that eventually agrees to call you as their pastor or minister. 

It is a discernment that includes several others. Our lives of faith are not meant to be lived alone. Faith is personal, but it is not private. So we rely on one another to help us figure out what God is saying, just as Daniel does in this passage. 

Now, the message from Daniel’s vision is ultimately this: There will be kingdoms and empires and strong, powerful groups of people who, in their pursuit of power, will try to destroy the world or your world as you know it. 

But God is sovereign. And nothing and no one can change this. Kingdoms, powers and principalities, nations and empires, political parties and ideologies will rise and fall. But God continues to rule over all. 

The sovereignty of God is one of the key tenets of Reformed Theology. We affirm that God reigns over all of life and creation. And because God is sovereign and because God is good, we can rest assured. 

God relates to us personally as creator, redeemer and sustainer; but God is also an absolute ruler and protector of everything, and we can trust that our loving God is alive and active in our world, not as a puppet-master who controls every person and event in the universe, but as a divine and loving creator who is with us in every step of life’s journey. 

In mysterious but profound ways, we experience this. And it allows us to both hold on and let go. We can hold on to hope. And we can let go of our need to control. Control, after all, is just an illusion any way. 

And knowing that God is sovereign allows us to practice radical trust. Daniel Wolpert writes, “The practice of radical trust is simple but not easy. The kingdoms of this world are invested in making us anxious.” [1] 

People who want to hold on to power want us anxious. You see, anxiety leads to fear. 

And fear allows people in positions of power to control us, weaponizing our fears for their own profit. 

Nelson Mandela once advised, ‘May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.’ And as we live life, in this here United States, during an unprecedented election year, I truly pray that our choices reflect our hopes and not our fears. 

Now, Daniel’s vision portrays the empires of his time as beasts, threatening and frightening, able to devour and harm. And we know from history, that empires often did work this way. 

The Babylonian Empire, The Persian Empire, The Roman Empire, the British Empire, they all shared their need to conquer and defeat others to amass power and wealth. In order to control so many cities and cultures across the world, empires often felt they had to be ruthless and violent. 

And for an empire to exist, inequalities often had to exist. The center of the empire would receive the most resources, wealth, and focus, while the peripheries and conquered nations and states were often treated poorly and plundered of their resources. 

Now, the United States of America is not an empire per se. But many say that we often act like one, and American Imperialism is well known throughout the world. The church I served in Minnesota had a partnership with the Presbyterian Church in Colombia. And they’re the ones who taught me the phrase, “When America sneezes, the whole world catches a cold.” There are currently seven U.S. military bases in the country of Colombia, and they feel the power and influence of this nation as do other countries all around the world. 

And while we as Americans may try to justify it, by saying that we’re exporting good things like democracy and capitalism and free speech, often times our interventions and power are used for our own interests rather than the interest of the common good. 

Empires still exist today, taking on different forms, and are often predatory and dangerous just as Daniel described them so long ago. They are still often characterized by violence, destruction, exploitation, and oppression. 

So it behooves us to remember that before we are patriots or citizens of any country, we are citizens, first, of the household of God. And our allegiance is not to an empire or nation or worldly power, but to the power of love, for God is love. 

And only God’s love is eternal, able to outlast all empires and kingdoms and nations. 

As the people of God, then, our job is to continue to help reveal and pull back the veil, calling out when human powers harm God’s beloved creation; moving to action when human suffering is caused by the hands of those in power; and loving one another in thought, word, and deed. 

Today’s scripture allows us in some ways to say, “Let go and let God.” After all, God is in control, and we are not. There is reassurance and hope in that. 

But today’s scripture also reminds us that we need visionary people like Daniel who can call out unjust systems, and even in the midst of fear and trembling, help mobilize for a better world. 

God is in control, but we are part of God’s design to bring about justice and equity and love in the world. So do not be afraid. Dream dreams. Have visions. Go into the halls of power demanding justice. And work together with others who seek the will of God and the flourishing of all people. 

Because that is the task at hand. 

May it be so, Amen. 

1 Wolpert, Daniel. Looking Inward, Living Outward.” Upper Room, 2024.