Daniel's Dream, the Antichrist & the Mark of the Beast

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. And again, good afternoon for all of you here in the studio, and we're certainly glad to see each and every one of you. And for those of you joining us on television, we trust that you will do like we do here, and again, take your Bible and sit down and follow these references with us. And we trust that we can make the Bible as thrilling and as understanding to you as we found it out to be in our classes. We have no axe to grind. We, as I've said so often before, we're just an informal Bible study, and we don't try to twist people's arms out of one way of thinking into ours or anything like that, but we just like to open the Scriptures and help people to see what they really say. You know, so many of us have been hidebound by tradition, and if there's any word in the Scripture that is condemned, it's tradition. And we have to be careful that we don't find ourselves locked into a tradition that is not necessarily in line with the Scriptures. And so this is our only attempt is that we can help folks to see what the Bible really says and how this book is so gloriously, supernaturally put together so that there is no possible way that human hands could have done it. For example, I just ran across not too long ago, and I should have known it, but I didn't, and I've been sharing it with my classes as we've come into the book of Daniel. And those of you in the class are already turned there. For those of you watching then, join us in the book of Daniel. But for openers, there are three books of prophecy written by Jews, of course, but all written outside of the land of Israel. And Daniel happens to be one of them, and he is writing from Babylon while he's in captive there under Nebuchadnezzar. The second one is the book of Ezekiel, which is also written from captivity, but now it's in the next empire. Ezekiel writes from Persia, from Shushan, up there on the Tigris River. And then the third one is your last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, which is written by John from the Isle of Patmos, which, if you know your geography, is a long ways from Palestine. It's clear over there in the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece. Now, those three books of prophecy, all written by Jewish men, but from outside the land of Israel, but they are also three, all three are unique in that they all write in symbolism. Now, you just stop and think about it. Ezekiel uses, for example, the dry bones, the sticks, and the fiery wheels. Now, all those are symbolisms, but they have a literal truth. Now we come into the book of Daniel, and we're going to see, if not in this program, surely in the next one, this great image that Daniel sees with the head of gold and the chest of airs that would be coming down through history. And then you get to the book of Revelation, and of course, that's why most people are afraid to even study the book of Revelation. They can't understand it, they don't even read it, simply because it's all in symbolic language. But you see, all those symbolisms are interpreted by Scripture itself in one place or another. And all you have to do is search the Scriptures, and then all these things begin to fall into place. So, that's enough for introduction. So, now if we come back to the book of Daniel, where we left off in our last program, Daniel is writing shortly after Nebuchadnezzar has besieged and taken the Jews captive out of Jerusalem and Judea back to Babylon. And so now as a young Jew being, you might say, trained by the Babylonians for service in the king's kingdom, Daniel is brought to the place of preeminence by, of course, interpreting this dream that Nebuchadnezzar had dreamed and lost and tried to get his magicians to bring back, which they couldn't, of course, and we'll be coming to that. But nevertheless, now is Daniel, this young Jew, a captive in Babylon, and as I said last program, I think it was, the scoffers like to ridicule the book of Daniel, and they claim that it was written by an imposter long after the events had happened, rather than by this young Jew writing before they happened. And I remember several years ago, someone in my class asked me if I was aware of that. Well, of course I am. So, the question then was, well, can you give me some proof that they are wrong and that we, as we understand Scripture, are right? Well, immediately one verse came to mind, and even though you're in Daniel, you might as well flip back with me. Keep your hand in Daniel, go back with me to Matthew 24. And even though there are certainly other evidences that Daniel is certainly in line with the canon of Scripture, there are other reasons that it's proven that it is a legitimate book of prophecy, but the best one of all here is in Matthew 24. Matthew 24, verse 15, where the Lord Jesus, during His earthly ministry, if you happen to have a red-letter edition, it'll be in red because He's speaking it. And Jesus Himself says in Matthew 24, 15, when you therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the what? See? Now, if Jesus is what we know He is, if He was what we know He was, the Eternal Creator, Sovereign, Almighty, author of this book, and He says that Daniel is a prophet, then that settles it for me. That's as far as you have to go. He has put His stamp of approval on the book of Daniel as being a book of prophecy. And so we don't have to conjecture, well, you know, is this something that's not for real? Of course it is. And as I've pointed out ever since we started back in Genesis, just like these three books written uniquely out of the land, all of these just show us and tell us that this book is so supernaturally put together that mortal men could have never thought of little things like that. But here we are now in this book of prophecy written back about 607, 606 B .C., and Daniel is going to unleash upon us all of the Gentile empires coming down through history. So I imagine we might as well come immediately to chapter 2, where indeed we have Nebuchadnezzar now all shook up because he had this tremendous dream, and it must have been a nightmare of all nightmares, otherwise he wouldn't have been so belligerently and antagonistically against all his magicians trying to get them to recover the dream. I mean, he's just at the end of himself. And so he puts out the command to all the magicians to come in and tell him not only the interpretation of the dream, but to tell him what the dream was. Now that's asking for something, isn't it? But you remember I told you last week that these ancient Oriental kings, and I don't imagine they've changed all that much, they were ruthless. I mean, if somebody couldn't fulfill what they asked him to fulfill, they'd put him to death. And so these magicians are right on the line, and of course he's ready to put them all to death, as you well know. And then you come into chapter 2, a little bit further, verse 13, well, verse 12. For this cause the king was angry, see, he's not being very benevolent here at all. He's angry and very furious, because these poor magicians couldn't recover his dream, and he commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. That's quite a king, isn't it? Verse 13, and the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain, and they sought Daniel and his fellows, because you remember Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego, you know, they're all in that same kettle of fish now, you know. So far as Nebuchadnezzar is concerned. And so then, verse 14, Daniel speaks up. Now remember, he's just a young fellow yet, he hasn't got any gray hairs or any reason to be respected for his age, he's just a young fellow. But he speaks up, and he answered with counsel and wisdom to Ariok, the captain of the king's guard, who has gone forth to slay the wise of Babylon. And Daniel answered and said, Why is the decree so hasty from the king? So Ariok made the thing known to Daniel. And Daniel went in and desired of the king that he would give him time, and that he would show the king the interpretation. Then verse 19, the secret was revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Now you want to remember that this is the almighty sovereign God at work. This isn't just human happenstance. This is the almighty. And so God now reveals to Daniel the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had forgotten. And so he's brought before the king. And verse 26, now I'm skipping verses for sake of time, of course. Now you come down to verse 26, And the king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was changed from the Hebrew to the Babylonian or the Aramaic name, Belteshazzar. And he says, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen and the interpretation thereof? And Daniel answered in the presence of the king and said, The secret which the king hath demanded, and cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers show the king. But, now here comes Daniel with his testimony, see. But Daniel says there is a God, the God that Nebuchadnezzar knew nothing of. Now I always have to remind my classes, and most of you know this, that beginning at the tower of Babel, the whole human race now has been saturated with idolatry of one sort or another. They either had that God or that God or these gods, every God they knew about except the true God, until he called Abraham. And with the call of Abraham, remember, he had a knowledge now of Jehovah, and that was passed on through Isaac and Jacob and the twelve tribes, so that Israel alone, during the period of the ancients, had a knowledge of the one true God. All the rest had nothing but their pagan gods, and their gods were usually the female goddesses or the gods of mythology, or they were frogs, or they were animals, or it could be the sun or the moon, whatever. But now Daniel again comes back to this pagan king in the midst of all of his splendor and his pomp and circumstance, and he says, but there is a God in heaven, verse 28, that revealeth secrets and maketh known to the king what shall be in the latter days. Now immediately what does Daniel say? God has revealed to you prophetic events. Now you want to remember that I stressed it last week, and I'll keep stressing it over and over, that all true prophecy centers on the nation of Israel, and usually, not always, but usually within a time frame. God will put the details out there, and he'll put it in time, like we're going to see if not in the next half hour or two, somewhere in the next few weeks, when we get to chapter 9, he's going to say 490 years are determined upon the nation of Israel, time. And then he gives all the details of what's going to fill in that 490 years. That's prophecy. Now the church age has nothing like that whatsoever. There is no prophecy concerning the church. Now, of course, we can see as the church is approaching the end of the age of grace by virtue of events getting ready for prophecy coming on the scene, that certainly is evident. But for the most part, there is no prophetic utterance connected with the church age. Always remember that. When these people come up and say, oh, on such and such a day the Lord's coming, well, you just mark them off as false from day one, because there is nothing in Scripture that can help us set a date for the return of Christ for the church. Now, you see, as soon as the church age is done and that undetermined period of time is ended and the seven years of the tribulation begin, now we're back in prophecy and we're back in a time frame. Seven years are going to elapse in prophecy, see? Am I making it clear? But for the church age, there is nothing like that. All right, so now then, coming back to Daniel as he stands there before the king. Verse 29, he says, As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came unto thy mind upon thy bed, which should come to pass hereafter. Verse 30, But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have, more than any living. But for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart. Now here it comes. Verse 31, Thou, O king, saw'st, now remember this is in his dream, Thou, O king, saw'st, and behold a great image. Now the image, of course, has to be in the form of a man, we're sure of that, because it's going to have head and shoulders and belly and legs and feet and toes. So he sees in his dream some kind of a humongous likeness of a man. Now I think just to give us a little hint of how huge that must have been in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, just turn the page a second, go over to chapter 3, because I have to feel that this dream somehow or other was a catalyst to what Nebuchadnezzar actually does then in this next chapter. And this is interesting. Verse 1, now he's forgotten all about what Daniel has said, I'm sure, but now he has gotten so filled up with his own power and his own self that he wants to unite all those pagan religions into a worship of one image, which would be of himself. Now this is interesting, because we're going to see that the last great world ruler, the Antichrist, is going to do the same thing, and that's what's going to tie it together. So we'll jump from here to Revelation in just a minute. But look at the size of this thing. Nebuchadnezzar, verse 1 of chapter 3, made an image of gold. Now the one he saw in his dream just had a head of gold, and I imagine in his dream he saw that gold just glitter in that Middle Eastern sun. And so he gets the idea that, boy, this is what I'm going to do. And so he makes an image of gold whose height was three score, that's 60 cubits, which is a foot and a half. So now you mathematicians, that's what, 90 feet of gold, and that's pretty tall, 90 feet high, and it's going to be 6 cubits, or about 9 feet wide. That's a pretty good size image. And he sets it out there on those Middle Eastern desert sands and demands that his whole then known world worship that image. Turn with me to Revelation, and that's why I told you when we first started Daniel, whenever you study Daniel, you have to go back to Revelation, and when you study Revelation, you have to go back to Daniel, because the two are so intertwined. And again, because they were both written from outside of Israel, and I guess I should have tied in another analogy that falls into that same kind of a category, and that is between the twelve apostles and Paul. Now very few people realize that drastic difference. Jesus chose the twelve within the borders of Israel, didn't he? Every one of them, mostly up along the Galilee. But that other apostle, the one who so many people try to force into the twelve, he would never fit. And one of the reasons he won't fit is because he was never called within the borders of Israel. He was called on Gentile ground outside of Damascus. And that sets him totally apart from the twelve. And if any of you ever doubt me, why, you just read Galatians chapter 1 and chapter 2 very carefully, and you'll quickly notice that Paul emphasizes that he had nothing to do with the twelve back there in Jerusalem. Well, that's why the Lord called him from Gentile ground, and he sends him to the Gentiles. All right, now then coming back to Revelation, this book that is such a next of kin with Daniel, you might say, come down to chapter 13, and oh, I guess we almost have to start at verse 11 in order to pick up the flow. Here's another thing I like to bring out, that as we study the Scriptures, I hope I have never been guilty, and I hope I never will be guilty of lifting verses out of context and make them say something by themselves. That's the most dangerous thing you can do with the Scripture. We have to look at every verse in its context, and it'll always dovetail with the whole. I've told people in the twenty-some years I've been teaching, if your doctrine, if your doctrine doesn't fit from Genesis 1-1 to Revelation 22, the last verse, you're on thin ice, because it'll all beautifully fit together, if you understand it correctly. All right, so now then, beginning with verse 11, John says, I beheld in his vision another beast. Now, when we study the book of Revelation, the first thing I always emphasize, the word beast isn't talking about some ferocious-looking animal or some dragon coming out of, what is it, Loch Lomond in Scotland or whatever, Loch Ness, isn't it? We're not talking about something like that at all. A beast in Revelation is always a governmental power. Now he sees another government of sorts coming up out of the earth. Now, you see, the first thing he sees in verse 1 comes up out of the sea, out of the mass of humanity. But this one is going to come up out of the earth. Now, some people take the tack that since this is the earth, and there's only one part of the earth that God ever concerns Himself with, and that's Israel, that this second beast, which will be, like I said, a government, but it'll be centered in a person. In this case, it will be the religious government, and that he would have to be a Jew. Well, I don't say he has to be, I think he could be, but not necessarily. But anyway, he has two horns like a lamb, because he's a religious leader. But he speaks like a dragon. So even though he's a religionist, where is he receiving his power? From Satan. And so we have a satanic religious system coming on the scene here in this second beast. And he exercises all the power of the first beast before him, which is the political leader, the Antichrist, and they're going to be working hand in glove now, remember. And so he exercises all the power of that first beast before him, and he causeth the earth and them who dwell therein to worship the first beast, or the first man of power. In other words, this religious leader, this powerful individual, under the cloak of religion, but still under the inspiration of Satan, is going to cause the mass of humanity to worship the other great world leader, the political leader, the Antichrist. Now whenever we teach the book of Revelation, I'm going to run out of time again, I know I will, but whenever I teach the book of Revelation, I always like to point out, throughout the book there is a counterfeit trinity. A counterfeit. Now always remember, what's a counterfeit? Well, it's something that looks like the original. But this is a counterfeit trinity, where Satan is the counterfeit of God the Father. The Antichrist is the counterfeit of God the Son, and the false prophet, or this individual we're talking about here, the religious leader, is a counterfeit of the Holy Spirit. Now here you see it. As the Holy Spirit today, as the genuine Spirit of God draws people to God the Son, this counterfeit of the Holy Spirit, this religious leader of the tribulation period, causes people to go to a worship of the Antichrist, the counterfeit Son. See how beautifully that lays out? And so this counterfeit of the Holy Spirit does much of what the Holy Spirit does legitimately. He doeth great wonders. Now he's a counterfeit. So that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. Now verse 14, since he's a counterfeit, the Holy Spirit will never deceive, but this one does. And so he deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do. Now I'm always emphasizing, just because it's a miracle, don't say that's God. Satan has tremendous miracle-working power, and he's going to really do it here during the tribulation. And so he has the miracles in the sight of the beast. Now remember these are two great world leaders. These aren't animals. These are men. But they're bestial in their personalities because they'll be so ruthless towards humanity. So now this false Holy Spirit, this false religious leader, will cause the people of the earth to worship the Antichrist, who is a counterfeit of the Son. And he will say to them that dwell on the earth that they should make an image to or of the Antichrist. Just like Nebuchadnezzar did back here. Nebuchadnezzar thought, boy, I'll just bring all the worship of the world and centralize it in myself by building this great image. Now the Antichrist and the false prophet are going to consort together to do basically the same thing. They too are going to amalgamate all the religions of the world. And the world is full of religions. And he's going to sort of meld them all together by making them worship one great image. Got the picture? So the religious leader, this second man of tremendous power, will say to them that dwell on the earth that they should make an image to the beast or of the Antichrist, who had the wound by sword and did live. And now verse 15, and he had power to give life unto that image. Now that's not stretching one bit beyond our present technology, is it? I read an article a couple years ago where the Japanese are frantically working on a living cell computer. Can you believe that? Not only will it be fed by electricity and the electronics, but they're also going to have biological cells working within it. So it'll almost become like a human. Well, here it is. Here it is. This is prophecy. And it's going to happen. And so this image is going to speak. Now, you know, our technology is already there. We've got computers that can talk, voice, and so forth. And it's going to cause that as many as would not, what's the next word? Worship, see? He's going to cause the world to worship this image of the Antichrist. And if they do not worship it, of course, they would be killed. And then, of course, come on down through this verse. We might as well finish the chapter and our time is gone, because I want to touch on this mark of the beast because there's so much confusion around it. And so, verse 16, so this false religious leader will cause all, small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand or in their forehead so that no man may buy or sell except he has the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name. Now, we know that when it comes to computers, everything is based on numbers. Your whole system of product code, the universal product code as it's called, those little bars on all the things that you buy, that's what it's called, the universal product code. And that's all based on numbers. And it's three sets. So, I have taught since computers came on the scene in the early seventies that I'm convinced that this mark of the beast is nothing more, nothing less than an 18-digit computer number that will either be put on the hand or on the forehead, maybe in such a way that only an ultraviolet light will make it appear, so that as people come through a checkout line or they receive their salaries or so forth, all they have to do is just show their number and it'll be electronically computed. Everything will be transferred through electronics. That's the mark of the beast. And it will not come on the scene until the Antichrist comes and we're in the tribulation. And those of us who are believers, we're not going to be there. So, a Christian does not have to worry about ever being forced to take the mark of the beast. We will not be here. And I want people to know that. But for the people who have rejected the gospel and they're going to find themselves left behind after the Lord takes us out, yes, that's one of the first things that's going to happen. They will be forced to take this computerized number. And without it, they just won't even be able to transact or even to live. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported and your gift is appreciated. Thank you and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.