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What you hear in secret, shout from the rooftops! 

Daniel 8 is a startling revelation that deals with the future fate of America.  If you were looking for a visible, physical symbol of America's financial prowess, you could have picked the World Trade Towers when they were standing tall in New York City. What then, would the collapse of these towers symbolize? The collapse of that financial structure...

Jesus used the story of a fallen tower that killed many people as a warning to listeners in His day... 
  • Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, do you think they were bigger sinners than anyone else in Jerusalem? {5} Of course not! So take heed - unless you repent, you will suffer the same way. (Luke 13:4-5)

Let us begin what is an enlightening and frightening journey into... 

the words of the Bible...

Daniel 8 is an area of Bible prophecy ripe with important meaning but which has been overlooked almost completely by prophecy scholars. It is helpful in interpreting the vision of Daniel 8 to start with the clues from the interpreting angel who comes to Daniel. The vision involves a ram with two horns being attacked by a goat from the west who has one notable horn. These animals and their horns represent nations.

What nations?

Another question we want the interpreting angel to answer is

"When does this vision apply?"

The angel does not disappoint us in providing these two items of information. As to the question of the time of the vision, the angel says three different times, that the vision is for the time of the end:
  1. v. 17: Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision.
  2. v.19a: I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation:
  3. v.19b: for at the time appointed the end shall be.

The angel is being very clear that this vision is for the end of time. This is an angel from Heaven speaking, not an evangelical expositor. It is important to take note of this because all the evangelical expositors say that this vision deals with Alexander the Great. Look at the major commentaries, consult the famous radio and TV preachers, check the seminaries. The verdict is well nigh unanimous. Because our forefathers for centuries incorrectly interpreted this vision to be Alexander's defeat of the Persian armies should we listen to them - or should we listen to an angel from Heaven? To say the obvious, Alexander the Great is not living at the time of the end! If we want to really understand what the Bible is saying we can't default to previous misinterpretations.  What we are looking for must come at the end of time, presumably, the very time in which we live.

As to the second area where we would look to the interpreting angel for help, that of the nations represented by these beasts and horns, the angel gives a very plain declaration in verses 20 and 21. They are Media (the Medes), Persia, and Greece. The names are symbolic:
  • 20 The ram which you saw having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia. 21 And the rough goat is the king of Greece: and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king.

Note in verse 21 that the goat is said to be a king, and then the "great horn" is also said to be a "king." What might appear to be an unnecessary redundancy in the vision, of having both goat and horn represent a "king" is cleared up upon examining the original tongue. "King" is from Strong's 4428 (melek) which is from 4427 (malak) which carries with it the idea of a "reign" or "kingdom." It is translated "reign" in most of its 300+ usages. Thus the goat, the larger entity (compared to a horn) appears to represent a "reign", a territory of potentially vast proportions, whereas the horn would seem to represent one individual king within that larger "reign" or kingdom. Sort of like a state governor as a "king" within the larger "reign" of the United States.

If we are going to be loyal to the interpreting angel, we must find modern meanings for the "kings of Media and Persia." (because, remember, the angel told us this vision is for the end.) This is not hard. Modern Iran is Persia. The modern ethnic Kurds claim to be descendants of the ancient Medes, and thus it would be fair to say that current "Medes" are from the approximate area of Iraq and Syria. The single goat would indicate the larger "reign" of these two powers; since God has used sacrificial animals in this vision--a ram and goat--(unlike chapter 7 where unclean beasts were used to represent Gentile nations), it could be concluded that that "reign" is the influence of Islam.

The ram thus represents the fundamentalist power of Islam in a life-or-death struggle with the goat, representing Greece. What power in the modern world is represented by the interpreting angel's mention of "Greece?" The apostle Paul uses the expression "Greece" several places in the New Testament to refer to the civilized world. For example:
  • 1 Cor 1:22-23 "For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: 23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;"

The Greek word hellen, here translated "Greeks" is also translated as "Gentiles" and basically means a person who speaks Greek, not necessarily someone from the literal country of Greece. Greek was the language of the learned, it carried the culture which began with the famous ancient Greek poets, playwrights and philosophers, that ultimately became the basis for what today we call "Western civilization." Notice that this goat comes from the "west." (v. 5)

Thus, pictured here, in cartoon, or vision form, is the struggle between Islam and Western civilization's Christianity. The angel tells us that the prominent horn on this goat is "the first king." (v. 21)
Here the word translated "first" means "foremost", not necessarily first in terms of order. Who is the foremost, the "first", nation of modern Western civilization? It is certainly the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world! 

2500 years before it happens, the Bible, here in a vision in Daniel 8, is focusing what is on today's front page: the clash of civilizations East and West, Islamic and Christian! 

We certainly saw this in the Bush Gulf War and we see it in the terrorist activities of certain fundamentalist sects in Syria and Iran, the leading exporters of international terrorism.  The daily reports after the Big NY Terrorist Attack of Sept 11, 2001, made it plain there was a class of civilizations.  People in Iran dancing in the street for joy that America was hit.  Americans decrying the barbarism of attacking "our way of life."   

The prophecy calls for two major ram powers, the "higher" to arise after the other. If we view the rise of Sadam Hussein as the first horn, we might expect Iran or another Middle Easter power to be the subsequent  major antagonist to the West and the US. Iran is listed by the US Department of State as the leading promoter of terrorism against the West in the recent past. The interpreting angel mentions Media as the first of the two horns, and then the king of Persia. The order would thus be Iraq (Saddam Hussein) and then Iran (Persia). As to Iran's being "higher", the idea of the Hebrew word is not no so much height as "pride" and "conceit." Thus the arising Iranian power will be more prideful than Saddam!  

Our topic in this article is the fate of the US. What does the prophecy say will be the response of the US to the rise of this second "horn"? Presidents long before Trump have been focusing on Iran as part of the axis of evil.  Our generals, like our foreign policy, has been united against Iran for some time.  President Trump is obviously now bringing this more vigorously to center stage!

Verse 7 says:
  • "And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved with anger against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns: and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground, and stamped upon him: and there was none that could deliver the ram out of his hand."

Here is pictured a Desert Storm-like annihilation of these Islamic forces. The two horns are utterly broken with no one to help. That part of the prophecy will need to be made clearer, because right now, were the US to make any kind of major attack on Iran, there would be opposition from Russia and other proxies.  But the words of the prophecy seem to say that nothing stands in the way of the success of the goat. While the Soviet Union was once on the demise, Putin has reinvigorated the power of Russia in the Middle East and would seem to be one formidable oppositional force to the USA exercising too much muscle in the area. Perhaps there is an implicit prophecy in the text signifying Russia's decrescendo.  It is interesting to note that Daniel is standing near a river near the Iran/Iraq border (called in the text the "Ulai" currently called Karkheh)  when he receives this vision!

What happens next? The US becomes very proud. "Therefore the goat waxed very great." (v. 8) We will be so proud of our Super Bowl sting of these Islamic dogs. Picture George Bush' victory dances around the country after Desert Storm. It is obvious to any observer of the American mood after the attack on the (former) World Trade Towers, that most Americans want to bust somebody's chop.  They will wink at the bombing of innocent people.  They are angry. Beware when you see the US in its next victory dance of this type, when the second horn is crushed. Verse 8 succinctly says:
  • "...and when he was strong, the great horn was broken."

Here is the plain biblical revelation of the fate of the U.S. The symbolism of the "great horn"--the U.S.--being "broken" is a graphic picture of the economic collapse of the U.S.  The collapse of the towers representing our economic system is a prophecy which matches this prophecy of Daniel 8.

If any man have an ear to hear, let him hear.  As John the Baptist said: 
  • "Flee from the wrath to come!"


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