Daniel Chapter 7:23-27
(Vs.23) “He gave me this explanation: ‘The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it. (Vs.24) The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings. (Vs.25) He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time. (Vs.26) ” ‘But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. (Vs.27) Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey Him.”
Introduction:
Today there is an organization spreading its expansionist tentacles into as many nations as it can. It is expanding its ideology throughout the Middle-East and into most of the western democracies especially within those nations that have a past Judeo-Christian heritage that are for the most part Neo-Pagan nations. The organization is the Muslim Brotherhood. This Islamic organization is the heartbeat of Islamic global expansionism.
It is a transnational Islamist Movement completely committed in every way to remake society and government according to the dictates of Islamic Sharia law. This organization was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, an Egyptian schoolteacher who famously asserted that “Islam is the solution,” the Brotherhood quickly became influential among Egypt’s poor by providing educational and health services alongside a steady diet of Islamist teachings. By the middle of the 20th century, it had established branches and affiliates across the Arab world.
The Muslim Brotherhood does not function formally as a political party or as an international organization as such but has shaped the thinking of Muslim communities’ right across the spectrum of the Islamic world and beyond matching its rigid despotic Islamist ideology with a flexibility that is tactical in nature. It has the ability to blend into society outwardly but stay unchanged inwardly. In some contexts, it engages in violence and terrorism. In others, it participates in the political process, even competing in elections, although its dedication to democratic government remains suspect. It is a Sunni Islamist organization. The Sunnis are the majority within Islam. Sunni and Shia are the two main sects of Islam, with Sunnis making up about 85-90% of the Muslim population and Shia about 10-15%.
The Muslim Brotherhood aims to establish an empire governed by sharia law, with the ultimate goal of creating a global Islamic Caliphate. This ideology has influenced various Islamist movements and political parties around the world. It funds educational institutions and social service organizations within society at every level. Its members are at work in the business, domestic, financial, political and educational worlds.
The Muslim Brotherhood sees itself as the embodiment of Islam and a vanguard of the Muslim society it seeks to establish. In its view, its path is the only straight path, and any deviation from its strict secular and religious ideology is a spiritual deviation. The Brotherhood is hostile toward moderate Muslims that reject rigid binaries and seek a faith lived through integration, not isolation. The Islamist mindset with its enforcement of Jihad is what drives this organization which cannot tolerate any deviation from its ideology of a global caliphate governed by strict Sharia Law.
Though the Brotherhood often uses the language of social justice, its core ideology is exclusionary. It seeks to enforce patriarchal roles and opposes gender equality in the public sphere, restricting the participation of women in education and the workforce. The Brotherhood also legitimizes the violence of husbands towards wives. It also opposes homosexuality and Lesbianism. As for minority religious groups they are regarded as second class citizens heading towards a future Islamic order.
The Muslim Brotherhood at its core has antisemitism woven deeply into its worldview. It opposes the establishment of Israel and did so long before 1948. It cannot support tactical ceasefires and truces with Israel as we see clearly with Hamas in Gaza which is Sunni. Hamas itself is a bi-product of the Muslim Brotherhood.
In Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates they have long banned the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to the stability of their regimes. The radical fundamentalist Jihadist mindset sees these Arab kingdoms as having compromised Islam because of dealing and associating with western non-Islamic governments. In the thinking of the fundamentalist Jihadist mindset and in their eyes they see these ‘moderate’ Arab kingdoms as apostates.
The Muslim Brotherhood is fully supported by Qatar which is a leading supporter and exporter of Muslim Brotherhood ideology and supports Hamas. Qatar has provided Hamas-run Gaza with over $1 billion while hosting Hamas’s political office and sheltering its leaders. The Qatari-owned Al Jazeera Media Network promotes Muslim Brotherhood ideology to audiences around the world and is thoroughly anti-Semitic to the core and influences much of the western media reporting in their fake news and false narratives concerning Israel.
As for Turkey, President Recep Tyapp Erdogan has been a long-time champion of the Brotherhood and he provided a base of operations for its leaders following the fall of Mohammed Morsi’s regime in Egypt in 2013. After the October 7, 2023 bloody massacre of Jews by Hamas accompanied by Gazan citizens, the man from Turkey intensified his public support for Hamas, refused to condemn its atrocities, and vociferously denied the organization’s terrorist nature.
For years, Turkey has provided sanctuary to Hamas leaders and fostered a permissive environment for terror financing. Also it is well known that Erdogan wants to become the Caliph of a resurrected Ottoman Caliphate controlled Empire of his Ottoman Turkish forebears.
From the 1950s, when Muslims from the Middle East and Asia began immigrating on mass to Europe, the Brotherhood began focusing on islamising the West. Today they exist in the United States, the United Kingdom, in Germany, in Austria and in France. In these nations and any other western nations they infiltrate they will aim at saturating society from within at every level, whether in the domestic arena, the charity organizations, the socio-economic, the political, the educational and the business world, with Islamic ideology and law. The Brotherhood’s branches in the West often operate independently while maintaining communication with the central organization.
And so we have today within western democracies an Islamic Trojan Horse. Islam is a beast empire which I am persuaded on the basis of history and scripture is the fourth beast empire described in Daniel chapter seven and the same beast empire described in Revelation chapter thirteen which is seen in the two beast empires mentioned. The first beast empire which seems to have received a mortal wound is resurrected in the second beast empire.
In this study we will briefly look at this fourth beast empire that Daniel describes in his vision and the interpretation God gave him.
Daniel Chapter 7:23-27
Exposition:
(Vs.23) “He gave me this explanation: ‘The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it.”
In Daniel chapter seven the prophet describes the four winds of heaven, representing God’s sovereign actions coming out from His presence and extending to the four corners of the earth that are churning up the great sea of the nations, especially at the political level, as we see four best empires that are specifically mentioned (Vs.2-3). This “great sea” some think is the name of the Mediterranean Sea which is called “the great sea” (Joshua 1:4; 9:1; 15:47). However, based on other scriptures the churning up of the great sea represents the nations in turmoil socially, politically and militarily (Psalm 46:1-3) (Luke 21:25) (Revelation 17:15).
In this chapter we see four beast empires that immerge out of the sea of the nations. The first describes Babylon (Vs.4). The second describes the Medio-Persian Empire (Vs.5). The third describes the Greek Empire (Vs.6). The fourth is the beast empire of the Antichrist. This empire we are told that appears on earth is different from all of the other empires and that it devours the whole earth, being one of global proportions that cannot assimilate with any other nation or culture. With its large iron teeth and bronze claws it crushes and devours its victims and tramples underfoot whatever is left (Vs.7, 19).
Based on history this fourth beast empire corresponds to the two legs of iron seen in the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon saw in the dream he had with its feet and toes being a mixture of iron and clay which cannot adhere to each other (Daniel 2:33, 40-43).
Historically Babylon was conquered by the Medio-Persian Empire which was subsequently conquered by the Greek empire. Following Greece the Roman Empire came which was also known as the Greco-Roman Empire corresponding to the belly and thighs of bronze in the statue Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream. So this third beast empire historically was the Greek Empire eclipsed by Rome.
Each of these three empires Babylon, Persia and Greece eclipsed by Rome had two main deities which were the same ones they all had only their names were changed. The Greco-Roman Empire that conquered Greece adopted much of the culture, the governance, the military strategy and tactics, the economic principles, the philosophy and the religious diversity that were part of the Greek Empire. Rome then that eclipsed Greece was included in the third beast empire.
Now we are told that this fourth beast empire cannot assimilate with the culture, the governance, the religious diversity or the ideology of any other nation (Vs.7). This describes Islam today. If any empire is “devouring the earth” today it is Islam. While Russia and America and China are all leading super powers in their own right, Islam is spreading its jihadist ideology like tentacles that are reaching into virtually every nation.
Islam cannot assimilate with any other culture, ideology or religion. Islam at its core is a cultural and a socio-economic system of government with its own social and militaristic power and strict laws that sets it apart from every other nation. Religion is a component. It is in reality the ideology of submission and subjugation by the sword. Hence we see crossed scimitars pointing upwards on all Islamic flags, emblems and banners depicting conquest by the sword.
I would suggest on the grounds of scripture aligned with history that the fourth beast empire then is Islam which conquered and eclipsed the Greco-Roman Empire. Many Bible prophecy teachers believe and teach the two legs of iron in Nebuchadnezzar’s statue represent a divided Roman Empire. However from its beginning Rome was not a divided nation.
The Roman Empire founded in 27 BC when Augustus became the first emperor of Rome was actually divided historically but not until 286 AD by Emperor Diocletian, who established the Tetrarchy, splitting it into Eastern and Western regions. This division became more formalized in 395 AD when the empire was split into the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. However, Islam virtually from its very inception was split into the Sunni and the Shia divide.
The Sunni and Shia split occurred shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 AD, primarily due to a dispute over who should succeed him as the leader of the Islamic community. This division became more pronounced over the following decades, particularly after the assassination of Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, in 661 AD.
Now in 41AD the city of Rome was sacked by the Visigoths led by Alaric. This marked a significant decline in the power of the Western Roman Empire. Finally in 476AD Odoacer, a Germanic chieftain, deposed the last emperor of the West, Romulus Augustulus. This event is commonly cited as the official end of the Western leg of the Roman Empire.
However, the Middle-Eastern leg of the Roman Empire called Byzantium with its capital in Constantinople (Today Istanbul in Turkey) happened in 1453 AD, which is a span of 977 years from the time the western leg of the Roman Empire ceased to exist. The Turkish Ottoman Empire which ruled throughout the whole of the Middle-east, North Africa, and even reached into Europe was the empire that destroyed the Greco-Roman Empire.
Islamic conquests in Europe primarily affected regions such as Spain, Portugal, and parts of Southern France where Muslim forces established control during the early middle ages. Additionally, the Turkish Ottoman Empire expanded into Southeast Europe, affecting countries like Greece, Bulgaria, and the Balkans.
The Ottoman Empire lasted for over 600 years from around 1299 AD until its dissolution in 1922. It was one of the longest-lasting empires in history. This empire it seemed received a deadly wound in 1922, such as we read about in Revelation 13:3 concerning the first beast empire. The Turkish Ottoman Caliphate was formally disbanded on November 1, 1922. The Republic of Turkey was subsequently declared on October 29, 1923.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was the founder of the Republic of Turkey and served as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He is known for implementing a series of revolutionary reforms that aimed to modernize Turkey and transform it into a secular, nationalist state.
Today Erdogan of Turkey is seeking to resurrect the Turkish Ottoman Caliphate with a global perspective in view. He of course is an ardent supporter of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and it would seem that the Islamic beast empire itself has been resurrected with its seemingly fatal wound healed such as we read about in Revelation 13:11-12 concerning the second beast empire.
It is interesting to note that in Revelation Chapter 13 that the first beast empire comes up out of the sea which describes the nations whereas the second beast empire comes up out of the earth which describes a resurrection. The fact that the second beast empire gives its allegiance and authority over to the authority of the first beast empire would mean it is the one and the same empire described (Revelation 13:12).
If any empire is being resurrected today it is Islam with a Caliphate in view and in line with the Historical Turkish Ottoman Empire, which the man from Turkey wants to resurrect, and which the Muslim Brotherhood want to see established as a global power. This is what is happening with Islam today globally!
As we read concerning this beast empire “Who is like the beast? Who can make war with him? (Revelation 13:4b). How do you fight an enemy that uses immigration to infiltrate western democracies at every level of society in the domestic, the economical, the business and the religious world and that infiltrates the political world, charity organizations and financial and educational institutions? How do you fight an enemy that uses civilians as shields, that uses hospitals and educational institutions and even private homes as armouries and sites for their rocket launchers?
How do you fight Muslim political leaders skilled in the deception of Taqiyya? (The Islamic practice of using deception, misinformation and disinformation when dealing with non-Muslims in a time of Jihad or when threatened).
There is no doubt since 9/11 that Islam is at war with the west, an undeniable fact that most western political leaders are either not seeing or rather choosing not to see. The ‘Trojan Horse’ of Islamic migration at every level of society, especially in the western democracies, is bringing about the fall of western democracy itself even more than socialism or communism is doing.
If ever there was a resurrected empire devouring the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing underfoot what is left it is Islam today. What else does Daniel tell us about this fourth beast empire?
(Vs.24) “The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings.”
Once the Islamic caliphate has been established, an empire will immerge like no other empire that has existed in past history and never to be equalled again in this present age, with an army God will ultimately destroy (Joel 1:1-6; 2:1-11, 18-20). We are also told that there will be ten political leaders of nations also called horns which will rule as subordinates within the Caliphate (Vs.7) (Revelation 17:12-14). These kings will all be under Islamic rule. We are also told three will be uprooted by another king different from them in that he has supernatural power from Satan. This will be the Antichrist himself who will be ultimately destroyed. (Vs.8-11) See also; (Daniel 8:9-10, 23-25; 11:36-37, 45) (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, 8) (Revelation 19:19-21). What else are we told about this fourth beast empire and its leader?
(Vs.25) “He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time.”
In Revelation 13:5-8 we see the Antichrist speaking against God and against the saints who have physically died and whose spirits dwell in heaven. We also see the end-time persecution of Israel and the Body of Messiah spiritually grafted into the Commonwealth of Israel, being the spiritual offspring of the woman Israel. See: (Revelation 12:13-17).
Daniel tells us that the Antichrist will seek to change the set times and commandment given in the Law to the Jewish people. Added to this the Antichrist will persecute the Jews and the faithful Body of Messiah. The persecution of the saints (faithful Jewish and gentile believers) will be for a time, times and half a time being three and a half years or 42 months in duration (Revelation 13:5). Much of what Antiochus Epiphanes did in past history as described in the Apocrypha and in the Book of Daniel itself will be done by the Islamic Antichrist who will exhibit the same character traits that Antiochus exhibited. (This is a study in itself)
Today we see the whole world turning against Israel and this will bring about the persecution of the Jews and faithful Christians in every nation. Persecution is already happening. The Jews and the faithful Body of Messiah in many countries are already in tribulation. Persecution is happening in Communist countries as it has done since its inception. However, Communism cannot be compared with Islam. While Communism is a threat to western democracy it is being rapidly and radically eclipsed by Islam.
Today both Jews and Christians are targeted by Islam. The Jihadist mindset says “We kill Jews on Saturdays and we kill Christians on Sundays.” The terrorist acts we see in Israel are already happening across Europe and will increase in frequency and intensity especially in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, in Canada, in Germany, in France and in Australia.
Those nations whose political leaders do not support Israel and denigrate and curse the Jews and support a so called ‘Palestinian’ State will experience the terrorism happening to Israel in their own backyards on their home soil. As the prophet Obadiah writes; “For the Day of the LORD is near for all the nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; your recompense will return upon your own head” (Obadiah 1:15). God will judge the nations that are afflicting Israel!” In that Day of the LORD no nation will escape His just and righteous judgements. As we read in scripture; “…for when Your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:9b).
When one considers the terrible atrocities being perpetrated against Jews and Christians by Islam what more could the Antichrist do than is already being done and was done during the Holocaust that will be repeated in the time of Great Tribulation, lasting for three and a half years? The persecution we already see happening on a global scale can only increase in intensity and frequency.
Having said these things, we know that the world will come to a stage where if the LORD does not intervene, all flesh on earth will destroy itself. With the nuclear arsenal today this is a very real possibility, a clear and present danger! For the sake of the elect saints and for the preservation of the human race itself God will cut those days short likened to a swift surgical amputation (Matthew 24:21-22).
As a well-known Jewish evangelist and Bible teacher has said; “We plan for the future but we don’t count on it!” However for those who belong to the Messiah our Lord Jesus and are faithful to Him the future is assured and secure for eternity! When it looks like the Antichrist’s empire will remain in power God’s heavenly court will sit and judgement pronounced and the sentence carried out (Daniel 7:9-14). And so we read what will happen to this fourth beast empire and its dictator…
(Vs.26) “‘ But the court (in heaven) will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever.”
This corresponds to the great boulder of the Messianic Kingdom not cut by human hands that smashes the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in which all of earth’s empires arrayed against God, including that of the Antichrist, are smashed and broken all together at the same time and swept away like chaff by the wind of the Spirit of God! This great rock became a huge mountain that filled the whole earth. This is the Messianic Kingdom of the Messiah our Lord Jesus being established on earth at His Second Coming (Daniel 2:32-35, 39-45). See also; (Isaiah 2:1-5) (Micah 4:1-5). After this happens it is then that the redeemed saints of God will inherit the Messianic Kingdom on earth, as we read…
(Vs.27) Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey Him.”
In the Messianic age to come after the close of this present age the redeemed saints of God, being Jews and Gentile New Covenant believers in Messiah, will co-reign with Him over the nations that have survived His Second Coming. The nations will be subject to His Rod of Iron by which He will rule over the nations. The government of the whole world will rest upon His shoulders See; (Isaiah 9:6-7) (Revelation 12:5) (Psalm 2:9) (Revelation 5:10) (Revelation 2:26-27). The Antichrist himself who will have pitched his royal dwellings at Jerusalem between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, will come to his end in Israel with no one to help him (Daniel 11: 45).
Epilogue:
In light of God’s Word and in light of history and what is happening on a global scale with Islam today the fourth beast empire is expanding into the nations. It is indeed that empire which is terrifying and frightening and very powerful with large iron teeth and that crushes and devours its victims and tramples underfoot whatever is left. This fits Islam to a tee!
For many years most Bible prophecy teachers have taught that this fourth beast empire Daniel mentions is a revived Roman Empire, however, as far as Europe is concerned it is already infested with Islam at every level of European society. The Islamic Trojan Horse is well and truly ensconced within Europe.
The Ottoman Turks conquered the Hagia Sofia Basilica in Byzantium (Istanbul today) which was the Vatican of eastern Orthodox Christendom. Today Islam wants the Vatican in Rome in order to show the superiority of their ‘god’ Allah over the one and only Triune God of the Jews and the Christians. However concerning the Jews the Muslims specifically want Jerusalem for Islam.
In past history the Crusades lasted nearly 200 years, occurring between 1096 and 1291. The armies of Christendom were aimed at retaking the Holy Land from Muslim control. The conquest of Jerusalem was the end-game for Islam and Christendom back then, and will also be the city over which the armies of the nations will seek to conquer for Islam, but they will not succeed in the end.
In these last of the last days from 1948 when Israel was reborn as a nation after almost 2,000 years of exile (Isaiah 66:7-9), we see Jerusalem centre stage in world affairs as the nations are upping the ante on their desire to see Jews banned from the City and the Holy land itself. The last great battle between the Messiah accompanied by the armies of heaven against the Antichrist and the armies of Islam will be fought over the city of Jerusalem See; (Zechariah 12:1-9; 14:1-7) (Joel 3:1-3) (Revelation 14:17-20).
When the dust of battle finally settles the Messiah with His robes splattered with the blood of His enemies will proclaim victory! (Isaiah 63:1-6) (Revelation 19:11-21). As for Islam it will no longer exist! After this the Messianic Millennial Kingdom on earth will commence and we, who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb along with the redeemed of Israel together as one new man in Messiah, will inherit the Messianic kingdom of God on earth prepared for us from the foundation of the world! (Daniel 7:27) (2 Timothy 2:12) (Revelation 5:10) (Matthew 25:34). Selah.
Click here to read “The Beasts in Bible Prophecy”
