The Dream Interpreted - Daniel 2:36-44

Kootenai Church

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So let's open in prayer Lord. Thank you this morning for the opportunity to look into your word again it is where we find sustenance and beauty and grace and the

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Lord Jesus Christ all of those things and you speak to us through it your

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Holy Spirit brings it to our hearts and changes our lives and Lord we thank you for that this morning.

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We we want to lift up to you this country you Have no

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There's been no surprises to you as we talked about we know you have everything fully under your control and we ask you to give us the wisdom and the

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Discernment and the willingness to trust you in everything Lord. We pray for the Fuller's this morning

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Bruce and Lisa Bruce has been in the mountains now for about a day and and Needs to be found. We pray that search -and -rescue would be able to do that and that this family would be brought back together safely

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And we just trust you for that now this morning as we look into your word We want to give you all the glory for whatever you bring to our minds this morning in Jesus name.

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Amen So Daniel chapter 2 and we'll start I got to get to the right chapter

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We'll start with verse we finished up on verse 30 or 35 last week So there'll be some more review and we may make it to some new stuff this morning, too

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We'll start up in verse 31 and read through the end of chapter Daniel chapter 2 verse 31

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Remember the king was dreaming was sleeping and had a dream and he challenged his soothsayers to both tell him what the dream was and then interpret it and none of them could

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So he was going to have them all killed Daniel if you will by God's grace came to the rescue and in verse 31

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We we begin to see the setting for the interpretation of the dream verse 31 you o king

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We're looking and behold there was a single great statue That statue which was large and of extraordinary splendor was standing in front of you and its appearance was awesome

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The head of that statue was made of fine gold its breast and its arms of silver its belly and its thighs of bronze

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Its legs of iron its feet partly of iron and partly of clay you the king continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and Clay and crushed them

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Then the iron the clay the bronze the silver and the gold were crushed and all at the same time It became like chaff from the summer threshing floors and the wind carried them away

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So they're not a trace of them was found But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth

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This was the dream now. We shall tell its interpretation before the king You o king are the king of kings to whom the

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God of heaven has given the kingdom the power the strength and the glory And wherever the sons of men dwell or the beasts of the field of the birds of the sky

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He has given them into your hand and has caused you to rule over them you are the head of gold and After you there will be an arise another kingdom inferior to you and then another third kingdom of bronze

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Which will rule over all the earth Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron in as much as iron crushes and shatters all things so like iron that breaks in pieces it will crush and break all these in pieces and In that you saw the feet and toes partly of potter's clay and partly of iron it will be a divided kingdom but it will have in it the toughness of iron in as much as you saw the iron mixed with common clay and As the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery pottery

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So some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle and in that you saw the iron mixed with common

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Clay they will combine with one another in the seat of men But they will not adhere to one another even as the iron does not combine with the pottery and in the days of those kings the

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God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed and That kingdom will not be left for another people

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It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever In as much as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it crushed the iron the bronze

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The clay the silver and the gold the great God has made known to the king what will take place in the future

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So the dream is true and its interpretation trustworthy then

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King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and did homage to Daniel and gave orders to present to him an offering and fragrant incense and the king answered

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Daniel and said surely your God is a God of gods and a lord of kings and A revealer of mysteries since you have been able to reveal this mystery

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Then the king promoted Daniel and gave him many great gifts and he made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon and Daniel made a request of the king and he appointed

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Shadrach Meshach and Abednego over the administration of the province of Babylon While Daniel was at the king's court

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So last week there was a question asked About one of the people that I've been using their systematic theology

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Robert Culver if he believed that the Millennium was a thousand years and First of all as this person who asked the question reminded me

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We need to be more concerned about the text of Scripture than what Robert Culver says But it was interesting what

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Culver said now I did read through I've been studying Culver. I couldn't find any place in his Teaching where he says, oh by the way, the

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Millennium means a thousand years, but every time he references it He's talking about a thousand years So I'm just going to assume what seems most evident from the study of his theology that he believes what the text says

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And I want to ask you in Revelation chapter 20 where it says that Satan will be bound for a thousand years

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How many of you think that's a thousand years? Very good. Very good. I know the ones that you didn't raise your hand.

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You just don't raise your hands in public. That's fine It's a thousand years

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God that the Funny thing about literal understanding the scripture from a an historical literal grammatical concept.

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Is it? When we decide that something is not literal it had better be because the

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Lord Jesus Christ said something like this the kingdom of heaven is like and Not our own decision the scripture

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Needs to be interpreted interpreted grammatically historically correct and literally unless the scripture tells us that it is not literal at this point and So when the

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Bible talks about a thousand -year reign, I'm going to be coming from the position that it means 999 years plus 12 months

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In our form of in our form of reckoning reckoning, so if there's no questions beyond that I'm gonna we're just gonna move into verse 30

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Yes if Brian gave us a

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See if I can repeat that correctly if literal sense makes perfect sense, then all other senses nonsense

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Okay. No, it wasn't me that came up with that It's like the old saying, you know, you know,

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I'm pro -life except No, you're not I'm for the

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Second Amendment except no, you're not So shut up. Okay Now he's getting mean verse 36

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This was the dream now. We will interpret. We will tell us interpretation before the king now at this point

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Don't you think Nebuchadnezzar was sitting up and taking notice because he actually told him what his dream was

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Now, I don't know how that worked out I don't know if Nebuchadnezzar had completely forgotten it and as Daniel interpret brought it to his mind

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It came to mind or if he remembered it. My opinion is that he it's just like dreams

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I've had I remember some of it Some of it and if someone if I see something happen that was deja vu for the dream

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It kind of brings it back and then I begin to remember more of it I am of the opinion that Nebuchadnezzar remembered his dream because if he didn't why did he ask the wise men to tell him it?

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He wouldn't have known if they were telling him it or not if he didn't remember it But he remembered it and Daniel Reiterated it or restated it to him perfectly

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So now I believe Nebuchadnezzar is leaning forward on his throne. And so Daniel's just he will tell us interpretation

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Daniel first described the dream to Nebuchadnezzar. This would give him credibility for what was to come

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Nebuchadnezzar had never been around a wise man like this Daniel accurately and specifically related to the king the dream that he had and he knew it

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Why did Daniel use the pronoun though? We instead of I was he referring to himself and God or was he referring to his companion

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Shadrach Meshach and Abednego? Or did he use the narrative we due to his inherent? Humility, this is most likely the reason

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Daniel has from the beginning Stressed to the king that any remembrance in the interpretation was going to be coming from Jehovah God Not from Daniel because remember he said no

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I have no better wisdom or understanding than any other man What I'm about to tell you is from the

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Lord God himself, not me. He was not promoting himself Verse 37 you

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Oh King and here's where he started and we let me see if I can remember where we were when we left off Those many months ago.

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Oh Yeah, this right here in front of me July 26th until the world ended The world ended

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July 26 Yeah, pretty close yeah, okay. Yeah. No, we still had food in our refrigerator

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You Oh King are the king of kings to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom the power of the strength and the Glory, so Daniel refers to Nebuchadnezzar as the king of kings

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Critics have seized on this as an improper title that Daniel should never have used it is in fact accurate though at that time

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Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful king on the known earth The kingdoms that followed were generally divided and controlled by more than one monarch only

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Nebuchadnezzar during this period of time controlled his kingdom individually everyone answered to him in Babylon and He had subsets prefects underneath him, but he chose those and they still answered to him

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He was the supreme authority of Babylon when he ruled and his word was law The reference to God being the

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God of heaven is truly intentional the Babylonians believe that their gods came from the earth

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They used mountains to represent their gods and as the power that those gods had

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In fact the name of their main God Marduk meant the great mountain They believed all of the gods came from the sacred mountain on earth, which they called the mountain of the lands

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Daniel fearlessly refers to the Lord God as the own as the God of heaven only as the

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God of heaven He wanted to be sure that Nebuchadnezzar understood that the true God was not bound to the earth

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Nor did he come from the earth and he was actually he was the creator of the earth and Separate from it not like their

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God who was and it was a result of the earth Nebuchadnezzar could not miss the fact that Daniel was telling him that he did not attain his kingdom on his own

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Rather that it was given to him by the God of heaven and that that same God had given him power strength and glory

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These were momentous and even dangerous things for someone to say to a king who had the power of life and death

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Instantaneous life and death over every subject that he ruled over He could simply just point to the person in his executioner would take that person's life

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Any questions or comments about that as we move on? verse 38 and You're the king of kings being the

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God of heaven has given and Wherever the sons of men dwell or the beasts of the field or the birds of the sky He has given them into your hand and has caused you to rule over them all you are the head of gold

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Nebuchadnezzar's rule was complete. He had sole authority to proclaim life or death For any citizen of Babylon while he did not rule over the whole earth

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Literally, he did rule completely over that part that God had put under his control The reference here is not to universal rule but to complete rule over the kingdom that Nebuchadnezzar had

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He was sole authority in Babylon and in all the surrendered conquered lands that he had conquered

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He was as Walvoord said in his commentary in supreme authority insofar as any human ruler could be the king was the head of gold as a personification and symbol of the

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Babylonian Empire The reference to being over the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky refers to the annual ceremony

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That was held in Babylon in which the reigning king Again was again enthroned as earthly representative of the main

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Babylonian God Marduk the epic of creation would be recited prior to Recited prior would be recited.

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Excuse me in honor of Marduk Reminding the king that he was that God's representative

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It also was instructive to note that this intimate knowledge of Babylon and its related Mythology gives credence to the idea that Daniel was the author of this book.

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He knew what was going on in Babylon He understood its history. He understood its underpinnings and Especially when he wrote this when he was in probably 80 85 years old

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He would have learned these things in his three -year instruction period and then they would have been They would have been firmed up in his mind over this the ensuing 60 years of work in Babylon Verse 39 and then we'll see if there's any questions after you

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There will arise another kingdom inferior to you So we have the the kingdom of gold the head of gold and then the next is the the chest torso,

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I guess Which there will arise another kingdom inferior to then another third kingdom of bronze which will rule over all the earth in This short declaration regarding the second two kingdoms critics have attacked the normal Interpretation that these two kingdoms were

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Medo -Persia and Greece Daniel later names the two succeeding kingdoms.

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So Slide 54 Daniel 528 parish your kingdom has been divided and given over to the

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Medes and the Persians Daniel 8 20 and 21 the ram which you saw with the two horns represents the kings of media and Persia The shaggy goat represents the kingdom of Greece and the large horn that is between his eyes as the first king and in Daniel 11 to now

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I tell you the truth behold three more kings are going to arise in Persia then a fourth will gain far more riches than all of them as soon as he becomes strong through his riches

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He will arouse the whole empire against the realm of Greece the succeeding kingdoms were inferior in rulership quality but not in size

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The media kingdom medial Medo -Persian kingdom was larger than Babylon and Greece was even larger and the

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Roman Empire was the largest Next slide 55 So here's the

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Relative sizes the Medo -Persian Empire is considered the most powerful of the ancient powers at its height during the realm of Darius won the great

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It controlled more than 2 .9 million square miles of land and spanned three continents

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Asia Africa and Europe its control extended westward into India and reached westward extended eastward into India and westward into Greece its capitals were

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Persepolis and Susa with its king sometimes residing in Babylon It is estimated that in 480

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BC the Persian Empire had 50 million people living under its control This huge amount was roughly 44 % of the world's population at the time making it the largest world power ever in terms by population percentage

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History verifies however that the successive kingdoms had neither the organization nor the central control of the

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Babylonian Empire Next slide at the height of its power the

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Greek Empire after its conquest of the entire Persian Empire the Empire comprised 2 .1 million square miles spanning three continents

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Asia Africa and Europe at its great extent the Greek Empire Include the included the entire areas of the

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Persian Empire the ruins of the Persian Empire modern territories of Iran Turkey parts of Central Asia Pakistan Thrace and Macedonia much of the

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Black Sea coastal regions Afghanistan Iraq southern northern Saudi Arabia Jordan Israel Lebanon Syria and all significant population centers of ancient

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Egypt as far west as Libya So that was the the next the next kingdoms

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Giant kingdoms, but they did not have the control the rule that Nebuchadnezzar had the single -person rule over everyone in his empire

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Any questions or comments about that? Yes Yeah, yeah a remark about how much power he had and then not long after that.

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He's grazing like a cow in the field Yeah, when when God decides something will happen it happens.

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So Comparative I didn't do the math but somewhere if 44 % of today's population would be

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Roughly three and a half to four billion people if it was the same today, that would be one ruler Over three and a half to four billion of the population of the world

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Verse 40 Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron and as much as iron crushes and shatters all things

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So like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these powers Break all these in pieces, excuse me break all these in pieces next slide

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That's not very big but at its height the Roman Empire encompassed about 1 .93

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million square miles With a more Republican form of government. It did not have the central control that Babylon had for much of its existence again

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Size does not imply superiority and in fact one secular website even remarked this

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Quantity is certainly not quality Despite encompassing an incredible 5 million plus square kilometers by 117

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AD That vast expanse surely wouldn't be enjoyed for too much longer as the

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Empire expanded the efficiency of its institutions Contracted to the point that by 284

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AD it was a vote It was vulnerable to external attack and eventually collapsed. There's a lot of reasons.

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I've been reading a little bit in the rise and fall of the Roman Empire and studying not necessarily studying but reading some of his comments

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Gibbons comments and There's just a tremendous number of reasons that the

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Roman Empire eventually collapsed And maybe we'll look at some of those as we go along but a lot of different opinions on that from the precision from the perspective of efficiency a

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Single king ruling a kingdom is indeed superior now Just as an aside here.

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You kind of hope he's a beneficent king and a tyrant but odds are

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Because of human nature if you have a single person ruling over such a vast government he will be corrupted

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I Think it was I can't remember who it was It said it but power corrupts and absolute power corrupts

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Absolutely, and that's a true story and that's one of the reasons I think why God removed Nebuchadnezzar for a while He was getting more and more

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Self -important self -indulgent and so God removed him for a short a short time.

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We'll we'll see that when we come to it So this was the perspective of the ancients that single rule was far more efficient

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Nations that gave more power to the people were considered inferior in the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians The rulers did not have the power to simply annul a law like Nebuchadnezzar did

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Fast forward to the Roman Empire in the ancient primitive Republic conferred even more power to the people or to the people at least in its middle years

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Rome certainly crushed all opposition and ruled the ancient world with a rod of iron Critics have attacked this section insisting that the first kingdom was of course

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Babylon but the second and third kingdoms were Persia and Media respectively as if they were separate kingdoms.

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This would make Greece the fourth Empire and eliminate the Roman Empire thus Negating the need for a prophetic element and remember why they did this

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Because too many prophecies came true Nobody could predict stuff like that.

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Therefore. This was a history as Walvoord notes in his commentary though next slide, but these critics

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Did not take do not take into consideration that Rome had already taken the Western Mediterranean Absurd Greece and parts of Western Asia While they might be expected to claim that a writer in the second century

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BC might have guessed that Rome was the fourth Empire They are unwilling to admit that even a spurious a fake

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Daniel writing in the second century Could refer to the Roman Empire for it is obvious that apart from prophetic insight

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He could not have predicted the event the extent of the Empire and its fall in the way

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Daniel prophesies Daniel clearly predicted the rise and the fall of these empires

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Hundreds of years prior to their happening the critics attacked that again because they can't believe someone would be that accurate

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Therefore it must be a history. Even if it was written as a history, it would be difficult for Daniel He would have still lived in the time that the

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Roman Empire was still extant and had not fallen yet And yet he predicted its fall Slide 59 next one

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Again, the basic difficulty is that the critics cannot admit that the fourth kingdom is Rome without attributing a genuine prophecy

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Even to a second century Daniel even had Daniel written in the second century as I just mentioned

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He would have still been predicting the fall of the Empire. He was living in hundreds of years later

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But many problems disappear when Daniel is recognized as a prophecy rather than pseudo prophecy

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The revelation of chapter 2 does not give sufficient detail to identify the kingdoms completely

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But when this revelation is coupled with that of chapter 7 and 8 the identification becomes clear and Unmistakable.

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So our challenge to those critics is read the rest of the book Read the whole book please

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Over the centuries much symbolism has been attributed to the figure that cannot be substantiated.

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For example the chest the chest and the abdomen representing the kingdom of Medo -Persia in the eyes of some

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Represent the seat of affection of the figure and from this they have inferred that Cyrus the

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Persian was a noble man Who had compassion for the kingdom of Israel? This is indeed reading too much into scripture

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This is what happens when we read things into scripture That are not there so an

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Important distinction to be made however Is that the third kingdom ends with the upper part of the two legs and that this indicates that the third kingdom would territorially embrace?

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Both east and west this would set the stage for the fourth kingdom, which goes unnamed But is most certainly the

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Roman Empire which did indeed conquer far west as well as the eastern part of the European continent

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Rome had the strength the scribe to iron The Roman legions conquered every nation they came into contact with for many centuries

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The verse indicates that the fourth kingdom would bear harsh rule as it crushes and shatters all things

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Romans were so harsh that they even treated their own people harshly remember at the time of Jesus when it was surmised that maybe when

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Jesus rose from the dead and That Roman cohort who had guarded the tomb they knew their their lives were forfeit

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They were going to die because somehow the tomb the seal was compromised on that tomb

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They were set in guard over it and the Roman Empire had a history of the rulers dealing very harshly

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With their own people when they failed in their appointed tasks. That's how harsh that Empire was

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The verse indicates that the fourth kingdom wouldn't would bear harsh rule Rome did Edward Gibbon and his history of the

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Rome wrote He wrote this the Empire of the Romans filled the world and when the

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Empire fell into the hands of a single person The world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies to resist was fatal

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And it was impossible to fly When one person bears rule over large numbers of people or even in many cases over a small number of people they become harsh and Evil, you know, they were already evil that evil begins to manifest itself in very harsh ways and so the later

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Roman rulers Caligula and All of those after him well even before Nero it was their world prison

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That's what the people of the Roman Empire lived in was a gigantic prison. It was a safe place, but it was dreary

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Robert Culver in his commentary on Daniel Daniel in the latter days notes that two millennia ago Rome gave the world ecumenical unity how many

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Churches are looking for ecumenical unity today the unity of churches Catholic and and all the others

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Rome gave The world ecumenical unity which the

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League of Nations and the United Nations Organizations have sought to revive in our time The modern attempts are not original at all as many of our contemporaries suppose

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But our revivals of the ancient Roman ideal which never since the time of Augustus Caesar has been wholly lost it is probable that the

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Pax Romana the piece of Rome and The piece of the piece of a well -ordered prison with plenty of iron gates steel doors

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Train guards and high walls is the best will have the world will ever achieve until Jesus comes

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There's no room for a theophant or a theocracy on this planet until the

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Thales is here until Jesus is here men Cannot create a theocracy.

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It will be a tyranny There is no sense in which the consolidated rule on earth is a good thing until it is the consolidated rule of the

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Lord Jesus Christ thus men have sought have sought to ameliorate the powers of government by creating different kinds of governments that took away some of the powers of The executive and distributed them we have we had such a government in the

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United States which in its origin did an excellent job of spreading power in such a manner as to reduce the possibility of tyrannical rule men will always tyrannize if they are given the opportunity and As it has been said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts.

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Absolutely. I Remember the name of the guy Lord something anybody remember? Acton Lord Acton.

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I had his first name Lord Pardon me

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His first name was miserable There is no way any kind of theocracy can ever be good based on on this planet until it is the theocracy of the

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Lord Jesus Christ himself and and thus Who are we to look to for our comfort?

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Not the ruler of the nation we live in No matter who it is, even if it was a good person

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We look to the Lord Jesus Christ. We look to the Father. We look to the Holy Spirit They the

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Holy Spirit is the comforter the Holy Spirit is the comforter Any questions about verse 40 that's a lot of stuff

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Verse 41 in that you saw the feet and toes partly of potter's clay and Partly of iron it will be a divided kingdom

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But it will have in it the toughness of iron in as much as you saw the iron mixed with common clay The description

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Daniel gives to the first three kingdoms is rather brief He spends a great deal of time more time. I should say on the fourth kingdom, which is

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Rome The idea here is that they would be given they would be open to vision in the kingdom, but rather The idea here is not that they would be open to vision

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But rather that throughout the kingdom there would be there would not there would not be the unity the monarchies have

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Monarchies have much more unity because everybody knows they can be killed if they do something wrong places that are given

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Much more freedom may or may not have the kind of unity that a monarchy would a forced monarchy has the iron implies great strength and the potter's clay implies implies an admixture that would eventually

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Compromise that strength in the view of the ancients the testimony of the strength of a kingdom was the kind of rule it had

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If the kingdom was ruled completely by one person those types of governments were considered the strongest as history progressed the governments of different kingdoms took different shapes the single monarchal rule of Babylon developed into the oligarchical rule of Medo -Persia this changed into them to the more democratic rule of Greece and further changed into the primitive

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Republican form of government that Rome had as Rome conquered more and more territories and brought those people into its fold.

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This had the effect of compromising Rome's strength Then more than anything It was the lack of unity that resulted from Rome allowing different nations to retain their individualism is

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Even as they became Roman citizens, they didn't buy in to the Roman form of government

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They kept their own individualism and slowly but surely this compromised the Roman government the

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Roman nation. I should say The resulting division that came from this admixture of nations and peoples would have the effect of eventually undermining

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Roman rule Verse 42 as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery.

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So some of the kingdom will be strong Part of it will be brittle here Daniel expands on the previous verses noting that the toes were also partly of iron and partly of pottery

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Later, we will see that the toes represent different kingdoms. Remember there's more to this book That answers some of the questions that come up in chapter 2

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So some of the kingdoms will be strong and some of them would not What Daniel could have had in mind here was the different kinds of governments that would occur in the latter days or he could have been referring to the inherent weakness that comes because government is composed of men with their own ambitions and Desires no matter the form of government

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It's going to be ruined because men will compose it This planet would be a nice place if it wasn't because of men

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I'm sexist man. It's a it's a general term general term mankind. I Gotta go home today

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Much ink has been spilled on this section of Daniel. Some of it is fanciful. Some of it more down -to -earth and biblical

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That almost sounds like an oxymoron down to heaven and biblical We could spend weeks just looking at the different aspects of governments that have been explored as commentators exegete this very section

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Suffice it to say that in the latter days during Gentile rule It will be full of people's and changes caused by men's experimentation with government next

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I might have let's go to the next slide next slide One more.

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Nope, that's that would that last one was correct. Sorry about that since the text Walworth says this in his commentary he says since the tech does not actually tell us probably the safest procedure is to go to is to glean the

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Interpretation from the meeting of the metals in the three preceding kingdoms keel rights as in the three preceding kingdoms gold silver and bronze

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Represent the material of these kingdoms ie their people in their culture So the fourth kingdom iron So also in the fourth kingdom iron and clay represent the material of the kingdom arising out of the division of this kingdom ie the national elements out of which they are constituted and which will and must mingle together in them while intermarriage may form an

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Element of it. It is not necessarily the main idea The important point is that the final form of the Roman Empire will include diverse elements

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Whether it's refers to race to political orientation or to regional interests and This will prevent the final form of the kingdom from having a real unity.

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It will be suffused with the differences that come from different kingdoms different personalities different nationalities

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Involved in the different governments. There's ten governments on those two feet And we'll talk about that as we come to it.

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We might have to study the book of Revelation after this We'll have to see how that works out Verse 43 and then

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I'll see if there's any questions and in that you saw the iron mixed with a common clay They will combine with one another in the seat of men

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But they will not adhere to one another even as the iron does not even as iron does not combine with pottery this apparently points to the fact that in its final form as The fourth kingdom the

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Roman Empire would have an admixture that was susceptible to division and dissolution This likely refers to the fact that the kingdoms controlled by men are inherently unstable

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In the final days of the Roman Empire both in the east and the west as Rome rotted from within the strength of Rome was dissolved by the differences within the kingdom that men had with one another as Rome does devolved step -by -step from a primitive

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Republican to democracy and finally into socialism it collapsed upon itself especially in the end there when they were the

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Those in power were trying to give the people everything that they thought they wanted while controlling them in the most

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Unusual ways whatever bread you've heard of bread and circuses. We may be heading into that What kind of bread do you like?

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I? Haven't been to the circus in a long time. So any comments or questions on up through verse 43

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Yes So in the final days of the

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Roman Empire when the the rulers were trying to control the people they would give them food

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They gave them food. They took it from you and gave it to them. Does that sound familiar and entertainment

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Because as men become more venal, they're easily more easily controlled by things that entertainment that titillate them

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So can you say NFL and I love football don't misunderstand me, but today

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I'd rather be watching high school teams At least the ones that don't get involved in politics

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All three of them Verse 44 in the days of those Kings the

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God of heaven will set up a kingdom. Are you looking forward to that? Which will never be destroyed and that kingdom will not be left for another people

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It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but itself it will itself endure forever

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It is most reasonable to assume that the Kings spoken of here are those which would reign in the last days and that the kingdom

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Of God will catastrophically destroy them and be set up permanently one of the things that all of this has the effect of doing all of this dissolution and instability and and From our perspective the ability to observe how wicked men devolve more and more into wickedness is to make the church long for the

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Lord Jesus Christ To love his appearing to seek to glorify him and to let people know

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Because the days are coming when it will be too late. The night is coming. We are still in the day.

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We must work and So for me some of what's been happening lately as I get older and older it makes me long for the days of the

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Lord Jesus Christ when Everything will be settled. There will be no more tears

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There will be nothing but constant Glorification of him and whatever he has planned for the millennia

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The eons ahead and it won't be singing with a harp and a in a crown on a cloud

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That's a song a nice song, but that's not what scripture says There'll be plenty to do and it will be exciting verse 45 in as much, you know, we're never gonna make it through verse 45

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We're never gonna it's just not happening not not in this lifetime so As we go forward from here as a church, it is our it is our delight in our duty

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And our by the grace of God to propagate not types of government not better rulers not more efficient methods of Delivering to the people but to propagate the

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Lord Jesus Christ the gospel Men will not be changed from without they will not

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I Can testify to that they will only be changed from within from the work of the

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Holy Spirit when he regenerates them and turns their eyes from darkness to light and And all of this in Daniel is going to serve as we study it together a church that loves the

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Lord and loves the Word Of God is going to serve to remind and remind us and strengthen our resolve that the scripture is the answer

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The scripture is the answer Sola scripture by scripture alone are men changed by grace by faith through the

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Word of God Any other questions or comments before we close you're gonna get three minutes of extra visiting time

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That my offering cup is in the back Let's pray Lord we thank you for the truth of Scripture for the blessing of the

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Lord Jesus Christ the Father and the Spirit knowing that that everything is coming about just Exactly as you planned it that nothing has escaped your your view

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Nothing has escaped your power that even as you promoted men like Nebuchadnezzar to be kings of kings

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You were the great king over all kings and still are we thank you for that It is a comfort and a solace and a blessing to us even in difficult times

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Might we go forward and remind others throughout this nation as much as we have the ability