Daniel 2-6

Welcome and good evening. This is truth and love. Thank you for joining in and watching and spend some time with us.

I'm thankful for Dan as he continues to join me and go through the word walk through the word explaining

God's word learning with me and sharing with you God's word. I'm thankful for this time that we have together.

I praise God for it. I'm humbled by it and I hope that you're encouraged. This is truth and love and we get that from Ephesians chapter 4 verse 15

Paul tells us but speaking of truth and love we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head even

Christ. So that's what we want to do. That's our goal. That's our aim is to speak truth in love and to grow up in all aspects.

What we've been focusing on a lot with Dan and I because we have this in common is this look at eschatology.

Eschatology seems to come in waves because of circumstances in our world in our culture.

So when things start looking grim and bad eschatology comes back up in conversation comes back up in social media, but when everything's going smooth, you don't hear so much about eschatology.

I think the same is true probably for most of our prayer life the time that we spend in God's word when we're in need we go to our knees when things are going smooth.

We don't see God as much and hopefully God will be working in us to change that in us that we'll spend more time in his words spend more time in prayer talk about eschatology talk about the gospel talk about everything that God has for us in his word.

And so what we're doing now is looking through the book of Daniel and Daniel is one of those books where where you can go to learn about eschatology and eschatology is just a big theological word.

That means in things in times the last things and so we we go to Daniel.

That's one of our go -to books to check out to see what God has to say about in times eschatology and there are certain chapters that people focus on.

We looked at one last time Daniel chapter 2 and then you have Daniel chapter 7

Daniel chapter 9 and some others that will really focus on will really zero in on because those those really have a lot to do with with eschatology and they speak pretty deeply to the subject of eschatology.

But then I didn't want to to breeze over or skip over the other chapters in Daniel because they have an importance to of course all

God's word is important. We need to study it. We need to learn from it. But in in a in times eschatological point of view, they have significance as well.

You have you have these larger not more important but but chapters that speak more to eschatology and then you have these in the middle that kind of help explain and give us a picture of how

God is working those things out what his kingdom looks like. And so that's why we wanted to take a look at those chapters.

We're going to look at chapters 3 through 6 and I know that sounds like a lot but hopefully we'll just do more of a summary of these chapters and give us an overview of what what

God is doing in in his in his plan in his plan of eschatology in his planet with with Israel and the church.

So let's get down to it. What I'm going to do is I'm going to start with the first chapter of this evening

Daniel chapter 3 just give a very broad summary one or two sentences and I'm going to turn it over to Dan to help us understand a few more details about what's going on and how

God is working show us where God is working how it fits in with eschatology in God's kingdom.

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So you're just as much a part of this as we are. We're community and we want to work together getting

God's word out. So let's get down to it. Let's look at Daniel chapter 3 and many of you are probably familiar with these accounts.

Nowadays we don't like to use the word story because they're not make believe they're not missed. This is historical fact.

These are historical accounts. And in Daniel chapter 3 we move from the the interpretation.

You remember in chapter 2 where we talked about how the king wanted someone to tell him what his dream vision was.

And it's interpretation. Daniel was the only one that could do it. But he gave credit to God of course.

And King Nebuchadnezzar when he heard that he was represented by what the head of that statue and there was some gold involved.

Here in Daniel chapter 3 it seems like Nebuchadnezzar takes that and I think it's something a phrase maybe

Dan that you've used before or similar to it. You said that Nebuchadnezzar took that information and maybe ran with it and here makes this golden image.

And then we have the decree from Nebuchadnezzar that people are to worship this golden image.

And if they didn't then the consequences were this fiery furnace where they probably used as a kiln or whatever but they increased the heat and there were some tattletales involved that didn't like the

Hebrews there and Daniel's friends were involved in this tattletaling.

But they were on the receiving end of it and they got told on that they didn't worship this golden image.

And they were the ones who were thrown in the fiery furnace. And if you're familiar with the story they said our

God can do it. He can protect us but even if he doesn't if he sees fit for us to perish in this fiery furnace to God be the glory.

We'll be with him. We're going to honor him, obey him no matter what. But he is able to save.

And then Nebuchadnezzar saw this fourth man who had the image of the Son of God there and we believe that was probably a theophany maybe

Jesus there in the midst of the fiery furnace with him. They come out without even a smell of smoke on their clothes or bodies.

They come out unscathed and Nebuchadnezzar then honors their

God. So that's kind of a brief overview of Daniel chapter 3. Dan why don't you take over and give us some more information about what's going on.

Yeah, we really kind of want to look at the book as a whole. There's a lot of benefit in looking through scripture in small chunks.

You get to dive down, dig deep and find out exactly what is this passage, what are these paragraphs, these sentences, what are they actually saying to me.

There's a lot of benefit as well in taking larger portions because you get to see the overarching theme of something.

A lot of these books were written or especially in the New Testament the letters were written to be read all in one sitting.

So they would expect you to be able to follow the argumentation all the way through something because to them it's basically it's one piece.

You don't subdivide it. So there's benefit in both. So when we look at Daniel, we look at Daniel chapter 1 and we see a people who were taken from their homeland, the land they were promised to live in, that they were in covenant with God for.

Obviously they'd broken that covenant and they were in exile now, they were taken away. So what now?

Has God given up on these people? Is his promise to be their God and they'd be his people, is it gone now?

And the answer is no. They take the opportunity, you know, we're not going to eat the king's food, not going to defile ourselves.

We're still going to live the way that God wants us to live. And so they eat the food that they were supposed to eat.

They end up being stronger and they end up being given positions of authority or influence in the kingdom.

They ended up being smarter and more fit than the rest of them that were there at that time.

So chapter 1 shows us that no matter what happens, wherever you are, even if things look grim, even if it looks like there is no way

I'm going to be able to serve God in this circumstance, if you're faithful to God, things will go well.

Going well doesn't always look like that. Sometimes going well means you get to go and be with your God, but it will go well because God is faithful.

So even in the toughest of circumstances, you have the opportunity to serve God. In chapter 2, we see a big promise.

We see the statue, the head of gold and silver and bronze and iron and clay.

He tells us it's the kingdoms. So this is what God's doing. God is going to destroy those kingdoms in the days of those kings.

The stone that's cut without hands is going to come and hit the statue in the feet. It's going to crush those kingdoms, and then the stone is going to grow.

It's going to grow until it becomes a huge mountain and fills the entire earth.

The kingdom of God is going to crush all of the other kingdoms that have come before it.

It's going to begin in the days of the Roman Empire. Talking about Christ, He is that stone cut without hands.

He comes and He crushes the feet of those. So what does it look like now that Christ, His kingdom, is crushing the kingdoms around it?

Jesus Himself said, My kingdom is not of this world. He says, they try to seize

Him and make Him king. He runs away. He says, I don't want any problem with that or any part of that. Speaking with somebody else,

He says, If my kingdom were of this world, we would have fought you about it. Simple enough.

So what does that mean here? What does it look like when this one statue, this head of gold, when it starts to crumble?

What does that look like? And this is exactly what it looks like. Nebuchadnezzar gets big for his britches.

You're the head of gold. Oh, I'm the head. All right. I'm going to be the chest and the thighs and the feet too.

He makes a huge statue of gold of himself and says, Hey, everybody. When I play all the musical instruments, it's time to party.

You're going to come and you're going to worship me because I'm somebody. The God of the

Hebrews told me. He told me, You're somebody. You're the head of gold. And what are these?

What are these Hebrews do? Well, there's three of them. I'm going to call them by their Hebrew names because that's what they started off as.

They were given other names. Their names are Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael. Those three were faithful.

They did not bow. When somebody made the claim that they were God, that they should be worshipped in the place of God.

They said, No, we're not doing it. We're not going to have any of it. And so they went to the fiery furnace.

Now, this is absolutely amazing when you think about it. Just the symbolism behind this. Who is it that we know from Scripture that goes to a place of fire when they transgress against a

God? It's sinners. We know from Scripture. Nebuchadnezzar, who set himself up as God, even had his own little version of hell.

I will destroy you in the fire because you're not worthy of being around me because I am somebody.

He was not. So what ended up happening, they would play the drums and the horn and the harp and the lyre and they wouldn't bow down.

And so they went and got thrown into this fiery furnace. It was so hot that it killed his guards.

Number one, whoa, hold on. Should have been a red flag right there.

But then there's a fourth one walking around in there. And it's quite possible, probably even

I'd say, that it was a theophany. In other words, the pre -incarnate Jesus walking around. But even if not, it was a messenger straight from God sent to protect them.

And they went into that furnace knowing that they were going to be protected by God. Either that their bodies would be protected or that their souls would be protected by the eternal love of their

God. Who would, if their bodies did burn, he would raise them up on the last day because they trusted in, they had faith in their

God. They trusted in him. So at the end of all this,

Nebuchadnezzar, somehow his guards burned up. The people didn't.

But he runs up to the entrance of the furnace like he wasn't going to get burned up or something.

And somehow he didn't. There's a whole bunch of supernatural stuff going on here. And he says this at the end of chapter three, verse 28.

Nebuchadnezzar said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Those are the names that he gave him who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him.

They disobeyed the king's commands and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any

God except their own God. Therefore, I make a decree. This is Nebuchadnezzar making the decree.

Any people, nation or language that utters blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb and their houses laid in ruins.

For there was no other God who was able to deliver in this way. Then the king promoted

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the province of Babylon. He showed him,

God showed Nebuchadnezzar that he wasn't the only king in town.

Nebuchadnezzar didn't get the full picture, as we'll see later on. But he realized, hey, this

God, I at the very least need to say, don't talk bad about him.

He's got some real power. I almost think he thought of him as an equal. I don't have any real proof of that, but it seems that way when you look at chapter four, when you see what happens to him in chapter four.

But what you see is there are lessons being played out, warnings, so to speak, for the nation of Babylon.

That God will not be messed with, that God's people will be protected in one form or fashion or another.

And that as we go through this life, we should be as bold as Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael.

Knowing that our God is larger, better, stronger and more righteous, more powerful to save than anyone that we come up against is powerful to destroy us.

So what does it look like when the nations of the earth are crushed, when the statue is crumbled, when the little stone starts to grow and fill the earth?

It looks like God's word being proclaimed, sometimes miraculously, but usually just through the everyday obedience of his people in whatever situation they come up against.

This was a religious political sort of situation where they stood up.

Somebody said, you must do this by order of the king.

Now, people are going to scream Romans 13 all day long. Maybe they should have just done it.

He was put over them. You should listen. But the fact of the matter is that God is still

God and God trumps any other authority. So while we do need to listen to our rulers, listen to those who are over us, and we need to respect the authority given to them by God, when they contradict

God, we do exactly what Hananiah, Azariah and Mishael did. We stand up because the kingdom of our

God is crushing the nations around us. Somehow, some way, and we need to be obedient through it.

So that's what I take from chapter three and one and two. So I threw those in there.

And you know, sometimes it's not as it doesn't seem to be as clear as other times when it's when it's that time to stand up.

Like, you know, here is one of those examples where the king is commanding everyone to bow down to a false god or or even bow down to the king himself.

Well, that's that's just blatantly. We disobey the king. We honor God. You know, that's clear, clear as day.

But, you know, we've gone through circumstances and we don't have to go time to go through all of them now and just kind of making the general point that it's, you know, there's some sometimes it's it's not as clear.

And sometimes it's a it's a conscience issue of is this is this the time to stand up or is this the time to to honor the government?

You know, where's where's that gray line? Where's that black and white? Sometimes it's difficult.

And I think, too, sometimes we get to the point where it's black and white because we we didn't stand up so much when it was more gray.

Yeah. And the thing is, it's not really gray. It's it's still black and white.

It's just that we can get away with it by just ignoring the problem for a while.

But the thing is, you have to remember what Jesus said. Jesus said that anyone in the kingdom of God who teaches someone to ignore the least of his commandments will be called least in the kingdom of God.

So where do we stand? When do we stand? When do we take this him? Any time our government comes against the word of God, we make a stand.

Your stand may not have to be big. You may just have to act and they listen. But something has to be said.

Something has to be done any time that the government steps against the word of God, because, as we've seen, especially this last year and a half, the government takes a step that it shouldn't.

If nobody stands up, it will keep on step. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Keep on taking it will not give the power back because, well, the governments of this world are in opposition to the kingdom of our

God. That's what it is. Those nations are being crushed because if they if they weren't, they would they would be part of the kingdom of God.

Right. And, you know, we don't stand up. We don't say anything. That snowball just keeps rolling.

Snowballs get bigger as they roll and eventually the frost is going to get pretty hard to manage. Yeah. Come straight to town, right to the traffic cop and run them over.

That's right. Exactly. We need to be on our toes. We need to be aware and not not complacent as Christians.

I'll be aware of our circumstances and what's going on. You know, we we are called and commanded to to go and make disciples of all the nations.

You know, we've got a mandate to go out to the nations, not to be complacent, not to just enjoy a worship service every now and then, but to to be involved in the nations, in the in the discipling of the nations.

And so this is it's a big task and it's not one that we should take lightly. And it's not one we should sit back and let somebody else do.

Right. He's called all of us to do that. And like you said, some of our roles are not big roles.

They're they're small roles, but they have key important places in God's kingdom, just like you were saying.

So let's move on to Daniel chapter four. Nebuchadnezzar, like you said, he begins to he sees what

God has done and he can't ignore it. So he he gives some honor.

He gives some credit to the Lord. And like you said, he may even just see him as a as an equal. But he does give some honor, give some credit to God.

And it looks like in chapter four, he has another vision about a tree and he needs someone to interpret this dream again.

He comes. Daniel comes back around and interprets this dream for him. And and Daniel says, he says, you're this tree, right?

Nebuchadnezzar and and this tree is going to be chopped down, is going to be cut down and destroyed.

And Nebuchadnezzar, he tells him you're going to eat grass.

You're going to basically lose your lose your senses, lose your reasoning.

You're going to, you know, be cast out and eat the grass of the field like a wild beast.

So it's a pretty disheartening message. You know, you hope when you have a dream or vision and you want an interpretation for it, you hope it's going to be something, you know, encouraging that, you know,

God's going to bless my kingdom, expand my territory. But he says you're you're going to be cut down and you're going to start eating grass like the cattle.

That's a pretty lowly state for anybody, especially somebody who was a king who was building a golden statue.

So that's kind of where we are in chapter four. Give us some more information. Yeah. Chapters one and three of those show us that God works in in in his dealings through the simple obedience of his people.

Chapters four and five tell us how God deals with the rulers of nations.

Very different in chapter four and chapter five. But God has two ways of destroying his enemies.

He can either destroy the enemy himself or he can destroy the fact that he had an enemy.

Here's what I mean by that. He can either take the one who is his enemy and destroy them. This is what we think of when we say he destroys his enemies.

He puts his footstool for his feet. He puts them down. He is conquering nations.

That's what we think of people who fall in a ball of fire and run over, buried, salt the fields and everything else.

Another way that Jesus conquers his enemies is through the blood of the lamb and the word of his testimony.

And that is what we see here in Daniel four. Nebuchadnezzar is brought low.

I mean, he went from from worship me to, hey, there's probably another

God out there, to I'm going to go over here and eat grass like a wildebeest for a while.

And then and then he's just completely humble. Like he doesn't even have control over his own bodily functions or where he eats.

He's got the dew of the grass coming over him and he's just disgusting.

What happens when he receives his mind back, when he receives his mind back?

It's not the same Nebuchadnezzar that you saw beforehand. It's a different one.

Listen to what he says, because Nebuchadnezzar actually writes part of the Bible here, which is really cool to me. The book of Daniel is written by Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar.

So here are the words of Nebuchadnezzar under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which is really cool to think about.

Right. Nebuchadnezzar says this. At that time, my reason returned to me.

He got his mind back. What am I doing out in this field? Why am I covered in dew?

Why do I look like a wildebeest? And my majesty and my splendor were restored to me for the glory of my kingdom.

In other words, he was out in the field for a while. He looked a hot mess. His counselors and his lords and everything, they sought him out.

They brought him back. They reestablished him over his kingdom, which we don't know if that means that somebody else took over for a while.

If there's a little coup, we don't know. But whatever happened, he received his place back on the throne.

He was brought low to even the point of losing his own mind.

He lost function of his own body. Everything that he thought he was in control of, he thought he was in control of his kingdom, and he wasn't.

He thought he was in control of his world, he wasn't. He thought he was in control of his body and his mind, he wasn't.

When he finally got some control back, he was changed.

I was reestablished over my kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me. He was better than he was before.

Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise. So what does he do now? He went in the field, he got his stuff back, and how does he act?

Does he build a golden statue to me, Nebuchadnezzar? No. He is,

I praise and extol and honor the king of heaven, heaven, Nebuchadnezzar.

He is, for all his works are truth, Nebuchadnezzar. He is the, all his ways are justice,

Nebuchadnezzar. He is the, and he is able to bring low those who walk in pride,

Nebuchadnezzar. I believe he was saved, regenerated.

He was calling out to God, saying, God is the God of all.

He is in control. He took over my mind. I now know that this God is God. And in that moment, something that was

Babylon's became something that was Christ's. The golden statue, the head, said, that's you,

Nebuchadnezzar. You're the head of gold. The head of gold became

Christ. We see in Revelation, it says, there's somebody shouting out in heaven, it says,

Behold, the kingdoms of the earth have become the kingdoms of our God. Nebuchadnezzar was once the world's, it was

Babylon's king. He was now under the service of Christ. He was a ruler over a country as a part of God's kingdom.

That is one way that God crushes his enemies. He takes his enemies and he makes them friends.

He redeems them. He saves sinners, which is an incredibly wonderful thing to think about because God will, he will restore nations through revival from time to time.

And that's what we hope for. We don't want to see America, we don't want to see

America chapter five it. We want to see America chapter four it. We want America to find revival, to find

Christ, to maybe even if we lose our minds for a while, to come back and say, our Lord and our God, we want you and we don't want anything else.

We don't want to come to the place where we're blaspheming him so hard that he sends a miracle of handwriting on the wall and then that's it.

So we'll get there in a second. Yeah. So, so when we look at, you know, what does this have to do with the, the little stone, the little bit of Christ's kingdom that hits those kingdoms and crushes them, it crushes them here in one of two ways.

Here it's revival among, among a leader. You can imagine what he would do as king of Babylon for a while.

We know from beforehand in the days of Jonah, Nineveh, Nineveh was, it was a city, a large city.

They repented, believed and saw prosperity. I imagine it was, it was much the same during the time of Nebuchadnezzar.

It was short lived, but probably about the same. Yeah. So chapter four.

Well, the verses right before what you read, it's interesting to see his perspective as he comes out of his, his madness into reason.

Verse 34, but the, but the end of that period, I never can has raised my eyes toward heaven and my reason returned to me and I blessed the most high and praised and honor, honored him who's

Leah, who lives forever. I mean, his, his mindset, his perspective, his knowledge of who

God is. He gains that. And then that leads to praise at least to worship.

He says for his dominion is an everlasting dominion. I mean, he's just, he's just spouting theology and, and knowledge and understanding of who

God is and then praising him. His, his, his dominion is an everlasting dominion.

His kingdom endures from generation to generation. Unlike he is,

I mean, he, he saw how quickly his kingdom could be taken away from him, but then he realizes, okay, this, this

God has a kingdom that's going to endure from generation to generation. It's not like my, and all the heavens of the earth are accounted as nothing.

What a viewpoint, what, what a way to look at your, not just yourself, but the entire inhabitants of the earth now in light of who

God is. But he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.

So he realizes that God can do whatever he wants to. He can, he can kick me off this throne and make me eat grass.

And no one can ward off his hand or say to him, what has thou done?

Just, just what a change in perspective and a, and a time of worship that that part that you were referring to earlier, that when

Nebuchadnezzar comes out of his, his madness and into reason. So just a beautiful time of worship there, even for us as we read it to, to reflect on who

God is. All right, moving on to Daniel chapter five, we have what this, this new regime and maybe it was, maybe it was

Nebuchadnezzar's son or grandson, maybe. Somewhere in there, it gets a little fuzzy, the succession of the people through there, but yeah, it's something like that.

Yeah. And Bel, Belshazzar is the king now.

And, and just briefly, I'll let Daniel take it over or Dan, take it over again.

But, Belshazzar, Belshazzar, see some handwriting on a wall.

And again, just like his, his father, grandfather needs an interpreter. And Daniel comes along and gives an interpretation, which again, it is not probably not the one he was, he was looking for.

God has numbered your kingdom and put it into it. You have been weighed on the scales and found deficient.

Your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians. And it wasn't long after that.

It happened. It was like, was it within the hour or it was that night?

Yeah. They were in process of breaking in when, when he was getting the interpretation.

Yeah. So it happened quickly. So, so go ahead and take it on over there.

Yeah. This one is, it's, it's kind of the same story, to be honest, the people of God, in this case,

Daniel simply obeys. God is faithful to execute his duties.

No, somebody calls on him. He says, God, what would you have me to do? He says, go read it.

Tell him what it says. Okay. It's through the simple obedience of, of God or to God.

Daniel pronounces that his kingdom has fallen. This, this

Belshazzar was, was not good. He went and took the, the old temple stuff, the, the drink cups and the different things and decided he was going to have a party.

They were going to get drunk. And after it says after they were well drunk, so he was, he was lit and I couldn't imagine, you know,

Hey, that God's nothing. Let me grab his cup and get drunk. And you sitting there, you know, swirling a little bit, you got your dancers and the music playing and everybody's having a good time.

And a big old hand just shows up and starts writing on your wall. What is going on here?

Yeah. And at that moment it was too late. Yeah. There, there are, there are two, there are two ways.

One, God can cause a revival to come. Like we saw with Nebuchadnezzar at the same time, a country blasphemes,

God enough, they murder infants enough. They get drunk. They sleep around.

They desecrate marriage. They say, it's not what you say it is. It's not between a man and a woman.

You know, you can choose whatever gender you feel like you, what God created in the beginning was wrong.

I'm able to determine what truth is. There's no God who determines what truth is for me.

Now I look at the world and determine what truth is and live it out. That is what, that's what people say. That's what Belshazzar was saying.

He was saying, I'm in charge. I get to do what I want. I'm going to be the one that determines truth, which if you think back about it, who are the ones who reached their hand out to grab the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

I want to choose what's right and wrong for me. Yeah. And the same thing happened.

The people fell. Now some people may ask, you know, why did Nebuchadnezzar, why was he given grace?

And why was Belshazzar not? No idea. It says in the book of Romans that God has mercy on whom he wills.

And he, he, he hardens whom he wills. But what we do know is that in the very next chapter, we have the same

Daniel who hasn't moved. He's still there talking with the king.

And it's a king of a completely different empire. Daniel was there faithfully serving and he was serving during the head of gold.

In the next chapter, he's serving over the arms chest of silver.

Why is that? Because the little stone that hit the feet was growing to fill the whole earth.

It was in process of crumbling the kingdoms of the earth, but the kingdom of God was never going to fail.

The kingdom of God was going to keep on going forever and ever. Belshazzar rightly got what he had coming to him.

Nebuchadnezzar found grace. Both instances, God was just.

And in both instances, God was taking his promise way back in the garden, given through Abraham, Moses, Noah.

Don't forget Noah, David that he was coming with the

Messiah to, to take away the sin of the world. He was doing it.

The little kingdom of Christ was coming to save centers. And that's what was taking place.

Babylon was falling one down three to go. And here comes our savior to take away our sin. Here comes the kingdom of our

God to take over the world. It was a great hope to watch, uh, to watch

God, uh, judge a nation. So we see

America fall. Maybe I hope not, but maybe we do.

Yeah. One step closer to watching Christ's kingdom take over the earth. Yeah.

Why? Because those people who wanted nothing to do with God are gone.

Now there may be a new people who want nothing to do with God who will show up, but those people will be gone.

Um, and in the simple obedience and faith, God fights for his people.

And that's what I think people get confused with, with post -millennialism. Cause we talk about a hope and we talk about, and they're going out there and being bold and speaking up and being strong.

And when do we fight? We always fight, but how do we fight? And that's where I think people get confused cause they, they like to slander the position and say it's a social gospel or that we're trying to, um, you know, beat up on the culture or we're trying to, uh, you know, do a whole bunch of different stuff where we're, we're trying to affect change.

And really what post -millennialism is, is this is faithful men and women of God living faithfully where God has called them, preaching the gospel and God fighting the battles for his people.

Yeah. Are we going to bring down the evil systems of America? Are we going to abolish abortion? No, but could

God, if it's going to be done, it's going to be done through him. And how's it going to be done? Because we're pesky.

We get annoying. No, not cause we get violent. Right. Not cause we start to sin and lie about people and slander folks.

We don't do that. No, we, because we're faithful to proclaim the word of God, that murder is wrong, that God has created this man and woman.

Um, and I hate to harp on those two, but those are two big ones right now. Uh, that truth is the

Lord's, which is basically what those all come under and that God is God of the whole universe.

We just proclaim those truths and then God fights our battles for us and kingdoms fall. And it's, it's sad.

In one sense. And in another, it's a wonderful thing because God is bringing about his purposes.

Yeah. Yeah. And just, and just drawing, drawing out, getting somebody's application in what you were saying.

Um, you have Daniel who, um, you know, they were exiles.

Um, they, they were brought into Babylon, but, but he, he, he served the

King, you know, the, the King needed something. He, he interpreted a dream. He grew, grew in stature, grew in position.

And we'll see that here in the last chapter, chapter six, as he continued to grow in his position.

But, um, you know, he, he's serving the King. He, he's, you know, providing for him what he's asking for.

Um, but yet he's being faithful to God. And then he's, his buddies are thrown into the fiery furnace.

even though that, you know, they're, they're trying to honor the King, but they're going to, you know, honor God first. They're going to obey God first.

And so they're thrown in the fiery furnace and God rescues them. Um, and then what, what does, what does him and his buddies do seek revenge?

No, they continue to, you know, serve, honor the

King, but they're honoring God first. And, um, the thing that come to my mind as you were talking, you know, and I was thinking about that is, you know, in our day and time, how, you know, we, we can get blasted.

We can get thrown in jail. We can, um, um, get cussed out or whatever, mistreated because we're standing on the word of God.

We're praying for people. We're, we're, you know, maybe some people are standing outside of abortion clinics and, and, and praying or, or offering ultrasounds or whatever they're doing.

And, you know, and I personally know people who, who have been arrested in those circumstances. Um, not, not for being ugly, but just, just for being there and, and wanting to, to pray for, for people.

Um, but then when they come out, what do they do? They go back to loving those people, the, the people that they mistreated.

And, and I see that in, in how God is working in his people here with Daniel and in his people here today, you, you're, you're, you're serving or, or you're honoring the authority that God has given us.

But, but God comes first. You're mistreated by our world. You're mistreated by the culture.

You're mistreated by the king. But when God delivers you out from that, and you're back into the culture, you're back in the swing of things.

You go back to not revenge, not dishonor, but you go back to love and honor.

And our circumstance is very similar. God is working in us that when we are pushed back, pushed down, mistreated, we get back up where we go back out and we don't seek vengeance.

We don't seek to destroy our enemy. We go back to loving and praying for and serving them.

and that's how God is, is working and growing his kingdom. And that's how he uses us as he, as he's built his kingdom.

This is just an example. I thought of as, as we were working our way through Daniel. And now we're, we're approaching chapter six, our last chapter of the evening.

Daniel, as I said, he has, he's growing in his position, his, his place of authority in the kingdom.

He is one of one of three governors. Is that right?

One of three governors over 120 sat traps. So he's got a pretty high position, but then again, you have these folks who are,

I mean, I don't, it's hard to speculate on their motive or, or really, you know what they really wanted to get out of it.

Other than, you know, they didn't like this guy, Daniel, they, maybe they were jealous of his position, jealous that God spoke to him and not them.

But whatever it was, they didn't like Daniel and the position that he held and the position that he held in relationship with the king.

Yeah. It was a verse, verse three says Daniel was better at his job than the rest of them.

Yeah. He was, he was good. These other guys. Yeah. And that can turn people off on you.

People can turn, you know, you're just there trying to do your job and do it well. And that turns people against you very quickly.

It's amazing. But they, they seek to trap him, manipulate the king.

And the king kind of goes along with it, not knowing their plan. The, they want people to, to worship him, to honor him, to venerate him.

And, and so he, he signs off on this, but Daniel doesn't go along with the program.

He's, he's praying to God. He's seeking God, you know, daily. And he doesn't, he doesn't fall for this.

And they're, you know, of course they're watching him because the intention was to trap him. And so they, they, they get him.

They, they tattletale again on Daniel and the, the king, they, they go to the king about it.

Daniel gets in trouble. The punishment is the lion's den this time, instead of a fiery furnace,

Daniel is thrown into the lion's den. And it says that the king, the king really liked

Daniel and didn't want to do it, but he, he had to honor his word. He had to, he had to follow through with it.

He threw Daniel in that lion's den in there. Maybe, maybe a theophany again, or maybe it was a servant messenger, an angel that God had sent, but, but God preserved

Daniel. And there again, showing the king that it's,

God's going to move where he wants to move and God's going to do what he wants to do. And you don't have authority king over, over my, what

I'm doing in my kingdom. And so that's kind of the, just a brief overview of chapter six.

What do you have for us? Yeah. If you think of everything we just said, it kind of starts over again. When you get into this chest of silver, a people, are you going to be faithful to this king or your

God? Yeah. They're faithful to their God. And what ends up happening in the end, then

King Darius and verse 25 wrote to all the peoples and nations of every languages throughout the whole world.

May you have abundant prosperity. I make a decree that in all my role, the royal dominion, remember once he makes a decree, it can never be taken back.

That's why Daniel had to be thrown into the lion's den. Just as sure as the word is where I had to throw this guy in there that I didn't want to, even if I don't want to, this is the, this is the law.

I make a decree that all my role dominion people should tremble and fear before the

God of Daniel. He is the living God enduring forever. His kingdom shall never be destroyed.

His dominion has no end. It sounds a lot like Nebuchadnezzar. It sounds a lot like a little stone cut without hands growing and filling the whole earth.

He delivers and he rescues. He works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth for he has saved

Daniel from the power of the lions. So this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus, the

Persian, he was the next guy. It just happens again.

It's like he started one place. It's, it happens again. Then you go on through the

Medes and the Persians and you see throughout that time, the people of God had a choice to be faithful or to not.

And you get the whole book of Esther out of this. It doesn't even mention God's name in Esther, but they were being faithful.

They were trusting in God throughout that whole thing. And they said, no, you're not going to destroy us.

And Haman over here, he's trying to do something,

King, don't let him do it. And they prayed and God had his way among his people who were just being faithful.

He preserved them alive because here's the thing. Here's the thing that's so incredibly important about Esther had

Haman been successful. Had he killed off the Jews, the promise of God to Abraham and Moses and David would have failed and we wouldn't have the line that the

Messiah was coming through. See, this is amazing. Esther is a much bigger story than just God was faithful to a people.

This is a story of how God was faithful, not just to the Jews in that day, but to everyone on the face of the planet would have the opportunity of hearing the gospel because had he not preserved them, the bloodline that the

Messiah was promised to come through, wouldn't have come, or he would have had to pick a different bloodline. And then he would have been a liar.

We couldn't trust him. But instead, instead of no

Satan working through Haman to kill off the bloodline of, of the Jews that the Messiah was coming through, they were faithful.

And what happened? They were preserved. They weren't just preserved.

Like they got to go after their enemies for a little bit, you know, revenge was served.

No, probably they probably could have done a little different, but there's just a description of what happened there.

There's no, this was right or this was wrong. God gave his people an opportunity to defend themselves and they took it.

Sometimes that's, that's how God works. Give you an opportunity to defend yourself and you better stand up and fight.

No, I don't believe that's how he does things in the gospel age, but I do believe we should defend other people.

Yeah. I don't know. We can get, we can do that discussion another time. Absolutely.

We can definitely dig into that. Yeah. I was just, so I was thinking about several different things as you were talking.

And I don't know if you've thought through this, this is just something that popped in my mind. And I think

I've thought about it before, haven't fleshed it out yet, but, and there may be no connection, but we're, we're looking at, we're looking at Daniel's chapter three through six as God working, what his kingdom looks like, how, how

God works, what we should be looking for, what we shouldn't be looking for. But then you have Daniel who's thrown into a lion's den.

And, and what happens? The mouth of lion is shut and there there's peace between beast and man.

And, and it just, it makes me think about the other portions of scripture where, you know, that language is used where there's, you know, there's going to be peace between beast and man.

And you, you think about in Mark where Jesus at the end of his temptation, Mark even says that Jesus is there with the wild beast.

And so maybe we can flesh that out some other time. But the two big things that we wanted to pull out is, is how

God's working, what it looks like for God to be working his kingdom work, what it looks like.

I wanted to define for people who may have not watched some of our videos.

We've used a few big words, theological words. Just want to make sure we define them.

We talked about what eschatology is. And we use the word post -millennialism.

Post -millennialism is just one view of in times that Dan and I hold to that.

That, that simply means that Jesus second coming is going to happen at the end of the millennium.

The, the most popular view is one where you, you see helicopters, you see planes crashing because people have vanished.

Pilots vanished. Cars don't have their drivers anymore. And that's represents the rapture.

And then you have the seven year tribulation. But then the post -millennial view says that the, the tribute tribulation happened.

And, and the culmination was 70 AD with the destruction of the the temple and the city of Jerusalem.

And then the, the millennial reign of Christ unit started with Christ and continues to this day.

It's, it's figurative, not literal according to scripture. And then his second coming is going to happen at the end of, of whenever God decides to, to end the millennial reign of Christ which, you know, could be thousands and thousands of years.

And then something else too, maybe you can, you can polish up that definition,

Dan, but maybe you can, and polish this up too as well. Cause I think there's some confusion, confusion when we try to define the word eschatology and we say it's in things.

In times, I think there are probably many folks that could have been me that there's probably many folks.

Oh, that, that when we say in times and in things, what

I described earlier is what many people picture in their mind. Two people standing side by side.

One person is gone. They, they picture the rapture. They picture this seven year tribulation where I should have been ready.

They think about this, that popular nineties group that, that saying, I wish I would have been ready.

Another, another girl, she sang a song. Jesus is coming. You know, there, there was a lot of in time songs back then in the nineties.

But I think that's the picture that they get in times. This is what I think about. But when we say in times and we, when we talk about eschatology, what we're referring to when we're talking about in times and correct me if I'm wrong, is the, the end of the age, which that's what the disciples were asking

Jesus of in Matthew chapter 24. What's the sign of, or the end of the age, the, the end of the old, the old covenant.

So, so polish up that definition. So when people hear us say eschatology in times, we're not talking about a future event we're talking about.

We think the old Testament is speaking of the end of a certain age.

Right? Yeah. I can see where that'd be confusing. Basically what we see is that the, the end times is the, or the last things that eschatology, what we're looking at that time period is a time from about Christ until the end of the world.

Now, the reason why we call it the end times or last things is because it comes at the end or last.

I'm not trying to be smart. I just had my hand for something. So what you have in the old covenant, you have

God's promises to his people. You have his promises of a Messiah. That's to come. You have a promise of a new heavens and a new earth of sins forgiven.

And there's that time of promise that the world lived under until the time of Christ.

And then that age of, of, I'd say the age of promise ended, but we still have promises today.

But what we're saying is the age of promise with no substance to look at was over because all those promises found their yes, their amen.

They found their fulfillment in Christ. So when, when

God promised all the, all those things throughout the old Testament, where were they going to be fulfilled or start to be fulfilled, can be fulfilled in Jesus.

So when we say end times, this last age is the fulfillment of those promises.

Now, how did it, how did it start? Well, it started in from Daniel.

It started in the days of that fourth kingdom, which was the Roman empire. That's when Jesus came.

He came to the earth. He came to the earth, preaching, repent, or he said, John the Baptist said, repent and believe that the kingdom of God is a hand.

Kingdom of God is here. What was the kingdom of God? Well, he said the kingdom of God was like a stone cut without hands that came and crushed the other kingdoms.

So what do we expect from the time that the old covenant age ended and the new age that we're in now ends?

Well, we call it the end times or last things, because we don't believe there's going to be another age after this one until Christ finally returns.

All judgment is final. Final judgment is finally taking place. And he sets up the eternal state where those who are righteous will end up with Christ forever.

And those who are not will find themselves in time of judgment. I really dislike, um, the, the aspect of, uh, calling it millennial positions, because when you talk about the millennium, you're talking about a very symbolic chapter in a very symbolic book.

Um, and then orienting your, what you call your position around when you believe

Christ is going to come back. Now, technically the amillennialist is a post -millennialist too, because they believe he's coming back after the millennium.

They just believe that it's, kind of almost like, the post -millennialists of today believes that it's not a, a, a literal thousand years, but it's just the time between Christ first and second coming.

No, not pan though, for the win, Becky. We'll come upstairs on you.

Uh, she's great. Um, thanks

Becky. So. Oh, where was

I before that? Uh, so, so you've got those who believe he's coming back before the events described about the millennium and some, uh, after, uh, some believe that it's not a set period of time.

And then you have the post -millennials who believes that the millennial period is when things take place.

Like there are things that define that period. where all the, the, um, only all millennialists will believe that, that, uh, people will be saved and that, uh, you'll be working through that time until the end.

The post -millennialists believes that there's a, a goal. There is a, there are certain things that need to happen in this period before Christ returns.

Um, the preaching of the gospel to the nations, uh, the discipling of the nations.

We believe that Christ command to us to a disciple of the nations is one that the church can and will fulfill.

Yeah. Um, that the, the stone in Daniel two will grow and fill the whole earth that the, uh, the mustard seed, uh, that Jesus talked about will grow into the tree.

It will grow so big that all the birds will come and rest in the branches that the, uh, the leaven, uh, that gets into the lump will permeate.

The gospel permeate throughout the whole, a whole world. Um, that the, uh, the, the parable of the wheat and the tears, that it will be a wheat field where it is wheat with some tears, not a terror field with some wheat in it.

Right. We believe that, um, that Christ gospel will be victorious here and now, and then the end will come.

Uh, so you take passages like first Corinthians 15 that say that he must reign until all, until he must reign as is until all of his enemies are put under his feet.

And the last enemy is death. And then he'll return and deliver his kingdom to the father.

So we believe that this time between his, uh, death, burial and resurrection in between when he comes again, that he is now building his kingdom.

He will fill the earth with his kingdom. You know, we'll take that kingdom after all his enemies have been defeated and defeat death at his coming and then deliver that kingdom to the father.

So when we say end times, we mean the time after Jesus, uh, came, bled and died, laid in the grave and ascended into heaven, resurrected and ascended into heaven from that time.

Until he returns again. Um, that's the end times.

Yeah. Before that it was a previous age. It's the old covenant age. Yeah. And there's, there's so much going on.

Um, I can think of a couple of things and I'm going to try to wrap it up here. Um, if you were like me at some, at some point,

I only knew of that. There was one view of end times and that may be you.

Um, you, you may have only ever have ever heard of one view. You didn't know that there were others.

Um, and then, you know, we're using terminology and, and trying to explain it.

Uh, we're using big words where, you know, we're, we're throwing things out there to you. Um, Dan and I are convinced of this position.

And we want to try to make it clear, um, what it means, what, where we find it in scripture.

Um, so that you can be like the Marines investigate God's word yourself and, and, and see if you see it in scripture because, you know, we're convinced of it.

And we think it to be on which view you hold, it affects how you live your life.

And that's why eschatology is important. It's not something that you can like, we shouldn't hold the pan millennial view.

Um, it, because it is important. Um, we shouldn't hold the view that everything will just pan out in the end.

We, you know, I'll see what happens then it's important and it affects how we live.

So we should treat it that way. Uh, just like every aspect of God's word. So with that being said, if, if we can help you, understand it better.

If there are things that we're saying that are unclear, if there are things that we need to define better, please let us know, let us know how we can help you to understand

God's word better. Um, the post -millennial view better, uh, any of the other views better, let us know how we can help you because we won't, we want to be clear.

We want to have our definitions clear so that we can help you understand. And before we move next time to Daniel chapter seven, uh, there's just a couple of points that we wanted to make sure that you get, um, uh, and, and Dan pointed them out, uh, several times that Daniel interpreted this dream of this statue.

And the fourth of these different kingdoms, the different layers of the statute represented different kingdoms.

That fourth kingdom was the Roman kingdom. And that was the kingdom that was, um, that was the kingdom that was present and active when

Jesus came, when he was born and Jesus himself is the one whom

Daniel refers to in chapter two, verse 35. Um, he is the stone that struck the statue that became a great mountain of field.

He'll, or Jesus is that stone. His kingdom is that stone. And that stone, uh, through Christ and his work will fill the whole earth.

That's the post -millennial view is that it starts out small. It works from the inside out, but it will fill the whole earth.

And, um, it is knocking down kingdom after kingdom after kingdom. Um, any last thoughts as we wrap it up?

Um, uh, just one, well, a lot, but we'll give you just one.

Um, if you are, uh, coming at this from a different position, maybe all you've heard is the, the pre -millennial dispensational, you know, seven year tribulation, rapture, seven year tribulation, uh, second coming millennial kingdom.

And then third, second coming. I don't know what you want to call it. Um, one of the things

I had trouble with, cause that was my position at first, because I, I, I, it's just what

I was taught. I didn't know that there was other one. uh, the one thing that made it really difficult for me to understand other positions was

I tried to take each one of those aspects of what I thought the end times timeline was going to be and just rearrange them to make it make sense on the timeline.

So I would say, all right, well, where do you put the seven year tribulation? And they'd be like, well, wait a second, hold on.

And I put it like, wait, way back there, like 70 AD. And it's not really just seven years.

It's, but, um, right. And then, no, when, when you put this millennium, when you put this, no,

I tried to pinpoint it. And if you, if you come at, at this, understand at, at the scriptures, thinking that you have these certain pieces that need to fit in to make your eschatology work, it'll confuse you.

The very best thing to do is to take your presuppositions, and you can't do it, but best you can take your presuppositions, lay them to the side.

Yeah. Look at scripture for what it says. Right. Listen to people from different sides.

See which one has the most consistent position all the way throughout scripture. Right. Right.

And then believe that. Yeah. If it's not what we're saying, okay.

As long as, as long as you don't come up with some sort of heresy, but go through the scriptures, believe what they say and come out the other side, trusting in Christ.

That's all we really, we really want to do. And we're going to try to influence you because we've seen something here, but really that's, that's, that's what we want.

We want people to know Christ and know him better. Right. And that's, uh, that that's, that's our goal.

That's our, our heart in the matter. So as you, as you study these things out, just, uh, trust in Christ the whole way through.

Amen. And if you've not done that, repent, turn from your sins and trust in Christ.

Turn to him today. Today is the day of salvation. Um, we're, we're not promised tomorrow and, and we want you to know him as your savior, as the king that he is.

So come to him today. Trust in him as your savior. You will not regret it. You will not, you will not find that you made a bad mistake.

You will not find any regrets with, with Jesus. And with that being said, thank you for your time.

Let me, let me close this in prayer. Father, we thank you for this time that you get us together. Um, the, the medium, um, of the internet and the social media platforms.

We're so thankful that we can spend time together from such a great physical distance, but we were, we're close together in spirit.

We're close together, um, through the internet. So we're so grateful that you've given us this time to spend together.

We pray that you were honored and glorified, and we pray that Jesus was exalted. And we, we ask you to use this time to encourage and save those that are lost.

We pray all these things in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you again for joining us. Remember that Jesus is

King go live in that victory and let's continue to go out together and share the gospel.