Daniel Chapter 7 and the Book of Revelation
The four world-wide kingdoms that Daniel saw in his night visions began with the Babylonians from 605-538 B.C. Nearly 700 years later, John would be given a virtually identical vision of these same events in the Book of Revelation.
The four beasts than Daniel saw; A Lion, A Bear, A Leopard, and a Dreadful Beast beyond earthly description, were a Prophetic view of the four kingdoms that would dominate the world over the course of human history.
The Lion represented King Nebuchadnezzar, King of the Babylonians.
The Bear representing King Cyrus of the Medo-Persian Empire.
The Leopard representing Alexander the Great who conquored the know world when he was just 32 years old.
The Dreadful and Terrible Beast coming in “The Last Days” from a revival of the old Roman Empire led by the one called the “Beast” or “The Antichrist”.
It is important to remember that these first three kingdoms described in the Book of Daniel, were predicted hundreds of years before they actually occurred in history. The accuracy of these prophecies in the Book of Daniel are so precise that skeptics have often stated that they must have been written after the events actually took place. They contend that any prediction with the detail that Daniel describes, would be impossible to predict before hand.
Therein is the point that we who study the Bible have been making all along. The Bible is the handwriting of God. His words and thoughts, recorded by “holy men of God who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit”. The most convincing proof that the Bible is the Word of God is that of the 2,500 plus prophecies in the scriptures, over 2,000 of these have already been literally fulfilled exactly as they were predicted, without a single error.
