The Dream Continues - Daniel 2:44-49

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Good morning, welcome to Adult Sunday School, Kootenai Community Church.

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We will be in Daniel chapter two today, finishing up, very likely.

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Let's open in prayer. Father, we come before you this morning again, excited to look into your word, which is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as they say.

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We are grateful that you have provided your word for us to know you. And so this morning, as we look into Daniel, we are grateful that you will give us insight and illumination and obedience to your word.

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And also, an understanding, as we can, of the events that are unfolding before us now and in the future, that will come in the future.

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Help us to be right inside the text, to be accurate, historically grammatically accurate, so that we know what you are teaching us and we can follow it and obey it.

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We'll thank you for your illumination and your Holy Spirit in giving us the ability, by grace, to follow

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Christ in all things. We thank you in Jesus' name, amen. So, lastly, we finished up with, looks like we finished with chapter two, verse 44, and 45 was just too much to go into at the time.

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So we will be starting at verse 45 today, but let's read, and I apologize,

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I'm a little bit disjointed this morning. We're going to read from 36 through the end of the chapter,

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Daniel chapter two, starting with verse 36. So this was the dream, now we shall tell its interpretation before the king.

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Remember, remember again, as for just a little bit of review that Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, and he brought that dream to his soothsayers, his diviners, his astrologers, and his wise men, and asked them to both tell him what the dream was, and then tell him the interpretation.

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And they said, king, this is impossible, and it was, but God provided the dream and the interpretation to Daniel.

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And so Daniel had to stop the killing of all the wise men, and he did that, and then he was given audience with the king to give the dream and the interpretation, and that's where we're at right now in verse 36.

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So Daniel says, 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 or the birds of the sky, he has given them into your hand and has caused you to rule over them all.

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You are the head of gold. And after you there will arise another kingdom inferior to you, and then another third kingdom of bronze, which will rule over all the earth.

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Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron, and 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.

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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.

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And the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery, so some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle.

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And in that you saw the iron mixed with the common clay, they will combine with one another in the seed of men, but they will not adhere to one another even as iron does not combine with pottery.

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And in the days of those kings, the 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 itself, it will itself endure forever.

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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, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great

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God has made known to the king what will take place in the future, so the dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.

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Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and did homage to Daniel and gave orders to present to him an offering and fragrant incense.

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The king answered 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 rule over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over all wise men of Babylon.

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And Daniel made a request of the king, and he appointed 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 as we looked at those last verses through verse 44, we see that the interpretation is beginning to come to an end in this section of Daniel.

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Remember, there's an entire book to be read yet, and so he's gonna comment on those other kingdoms again later on.

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So many commentators looking here had plenty to say, and you gotta wonder sometimes after you read the rest of the book, did they read the whole book?

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And so we're gonna actually read the whole book, and we'll get through it slowly but surely. We should be through it before the next presidential election,

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I think. And no, I didn't get any whispers or see anything about this presidential election in here.

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This has been in print for millennia, and we will see what

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God has. So verse 44 finishes up, in the days of those kings, the 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 to an end to all these kingdoms, but it itself will endure forever.

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It's most reasonable to assume as we looked at this that the king spoken of here are those which would reign in the last days, and the kingdom of God will catastrophically destroy them and be set up permanently, permanently.

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There will be no kingdom after the kingdom of God. So verse 45, here's what it says.

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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, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great

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God has made known to the king what will take place in the future, so the dream is true, and its interpretation is trustworthy.

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So if we could go to slide 62, I believe. I stole the clicker and left it home, so I'm, yeah, you gotta watch these elders all the time.

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And we are headed for 62 any second here. Yeah, okay.

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So the 10 -toe dilemma, and there's no dilemma if you read it and try not to impose upon it your own preconceived notions, is most easily solved if one realizes that this portion of the prophecy has not been fulfilled completely yet.

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Many have tried to find the fulfillment of this portion of the statue's imagery in the 5th and 6th centuries after Christ, most notably

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Augustine, who purported, who believed that the interpretation had its fulfillment by 650

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AD, although he probably noticed before he died that Christ hasn't come back.

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I think he noticed that, I'm sure he did. But nothing resembling the complete destruction of the kingdoms by a single catastrophic occurrence has occurred in history up to this point.

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The leg stage was fulfilled in the Roman Empire, which overran the Syrian and Egyptian remnants of the

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Alexandrian Empire. The stone spoken of here is not

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Mount Zion, as some have concluded, but is rather a symbol of the sovereignty of God and His control over the kingdoms of men.

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Remember, as we, for those of you that have read the whole book of Daniel, and I think I remember we did something of an overstudy, the point of the book of Daniel, the theme is the sovereignty of God over men, over the kingdoms of men.

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There is nothing that happens on this planet that takes God by surprise, ever.

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And we are taken by surprise daily, are we not? And actually, the surprise has gotten to the point now where we don't, some of us just barely cock an eyebrow.

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Yeah, I didn't expect that, but it's 2020. You know, the best day of the year was

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Friday the 13th, 2020, because the two evils canceled each other out, and did you know that? I heard that in a whisper last night.

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So, Walvoord explains it this way in his commentary. He says, the leg stage of the image has been fulfilled historically in the

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Roman Empire that took control of the Syrian and Egyptian remnants of Alexander's Greek Empire. However, it is not necessary to assume the legs continue to point forward, as this image does not correspond to the period of more than 1 ,000 years stretching from the time of Christ to when the

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Roman Empire finally gasped its last. There is a simpler and yet more effective means of understanding this final portion of the image.

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As noted above, the upper part of the legs represented the twofold stage of the last period of the Alexandrian Empire, which especially concerned the

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Jews, namely Syria and Egypt. This was two -legged because it embraced two continents, or two major geographic areas, the east and the west.

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The Roman Empire continued this twofold division and extended its sway over the entire Mediterranean area, as well as Western Asia.

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In ordinary history, Egypt was usually grouped with Syria as belonging to the east because of a long relationship politically and commercially that tied

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Egypt to Western Asia. By contrast, Macedonia in Europe was considered the west.

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From the divine viewpoint, however, and especially the prophetic outlook that is symbolized in the image of Daniel, both

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Egypt and the continent of Africa, as well as the European nations, including Macedonia, could well be considered the western division, which eventually expanded to include the whole

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Mediterranean area west of Asia, all the way west of Asia. The image portrays the divine viewpoint which anticipated the rise of the

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Roman Empire and its geographic inclusion of the east and the west. This was recognized ultimately in the political division of the east and the west by the emperor

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Valentinian I in AD 364. Although Daniel does not deal with the inter -Advent age as such, the time between then and the coming of Christ, it is still true that at the time of Christ's first advent,

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Rome already was geographically spread over the east and the west. Prophetically, it indicates that at the time of the end,

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Rome will again involve both the east and the west. The meaning of the two legs, therefore, is geographic rather than a matter of nationalities.

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A comparison of the extension of the various empires will reveal that the Babylonian Empire and the Medo -Persian

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Empire extended principally over western Asia, although Egypt was also conquered. In the

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Alexandrian Empire, the western division began to take real form and power, was divided between Syria and Egypt.

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The Roman Empire embraced a much wider territory in which the western division became fully as strong as the eastern, and this seems to be portrayed by the two legs.

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They're the same amount of power. This political and geographic situation continued to the time of Christ, and if Daniel's vision ended here, only to pick up the situation at the end of the age, it would be understandable that the two legs would be seen as equal.

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Now, there's three different, as we've talked earlier, there's three different views of the end times, at least three, and in each of the three, there's all divisions.

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We've had a lot of time, millennia, to come up with 97 ,000 different ideas about how this works, and it's sometimes, as I was reading and studying some of the different views, some of them are comical, and some of them are quite scholarly, but nevertheless, there are plenty of adherence to each, and so we need to say this.

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If you have a wrong view of eschatology, you're not gonna go to hell. The things that are really important, eschatology is really important, but the doctrines that you must be correct on, eschatology is not necessarily one of those, for salvation.

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However, for comfort, and an understanding of the incredible sovereignty of God, it's nice to have a proper view, and to remind ourselves every day that the happenings in the world around us are perfectly within His sovereign will.

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There's no mistake that led to the 138 ,000 votes that were found in one of these states.

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God knew about that, and He probably went, they're using computers, what idiots.

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Or something like that. No, I didn't hear a whisper. So now, amillennialists believe that the church has been progressively conquering the world.

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Really? What do you think? How are we doing? What's the score?

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I think Green Bay is doing better. Throughout the ages, and I shouldn't poke fun, because there are a lot of serious people that believe that, that the church will progressively conquer the world, and all of the world will come to Christ.

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There doesn't seem to be any evidence that 2 ,000 years after Christ's coming, the church has conquered the entire world. In fact, one could easily argue that today especially sees a rise in Gentile domination, which will be summarily done away with by the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Virtually all expositors agree that this picture occurs in Revelation chapter 19, verses 11 through 21.

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Let's look at that, that's the next slide. Revelation 19, 11 through 21.

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I'll start reading. And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it is called

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Faithful and True. Who's that? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. And in righteousness, he judges and wages war.

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His eyes are a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written on him which no one knows except himself.

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He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following him on white horses.

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From his mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it he may strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.

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And he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty, and on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written,

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King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in midheaven, come, assemble for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves and small and great.

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And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to make war against him who sat on the horse and against his army.

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And the beast was seized and with him the false prophet who performed the signs in his presence, which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who had worshiped his image.

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These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone, and the rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of him which sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh."

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And so this picture that Daniel is presaging, if you will, occurs in Revelation 19.

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And again, virtually all expositors agree on that. So the fifth kingdom can only be equated with the kingdom of the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and it will replace completely all the previous kingdoms and it will last forever.

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Aren't you grateful for that? Yeah, and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess

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Jesus is Lord, either in heaven or in hell. There will be full confession that Jesus Christ is

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Lord, sovereign Lord. The image has not been completely destroyed throughout history. The final destruction occurs with the reign of Christ.

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This destroys all remnants of the kingdoms of men. When Christ finally conquers all of the kingdoms of men, there will be nothing left to challenge him again ever.

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That is not now. There are plenty of things, people, nations, governments, that challenge

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Christ every day, today, and they will lose. So how do the different millennial views view, the different millennial views come into play here?

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We're gonna review. If you go to the next slide, please. Amillennialism is the teaching that there is no literal thousand -year reign of Christ as referenced in Revelation 20.

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It sees the thousand -year period spoken of in Revelation 20 as figurative. Instead, it teaches that we are in the millennium now and that at the return of Christ in 1

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Thessalonians 4 .16 through 5 .2, there will be the final judgment and the heavens and the earth will then be destroyed, 2

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Peter 3 .10. Premillennialism, which I adhere to premillennialism, is the teaching concerning the end times, eschatology.

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When you see these big words, you gotta translate them out of the ancient language into our current vernacular.

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The eschatology is the science or the teaching or the understanding of the end times.

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It says that there will be a future millennium, 1 ,000 years as mentioned in Revelation 20, which is what the word millennium means.

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And where Christ will rule and reign over the earth at the beginning of the millennium, Satan and his angels will be bound and peace will exist on the entire earth.

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At the end of the 1 ,000 years, Satan will be released in order to raise an army against Jesus, Jesus will destroy them, and then the final judgment will take place with the new heavens and the new earth being made.

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And then postmillennialism, after the millennium, is an eschatological position.

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Say that three times fast without spitting on people in front of you. Within the, is a position within Christian theology that interprets

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Revelation 20 as a period in which through the preaching of the word of God, the entire world will eventually be converted to Christianity, and this will usher in the kingdom of Christ.

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This is when Christ will return. It is postmillennial in that after the 1 ,000 year reign of Christ that the world will be converted and the final work of God will be completed.

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Some postmillennialists believe that the 1 ,000 years is literal, and some believe it is figurative.

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And within each of those three camps, you will find differing views. Again, important, but not critical to your salvation.

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So we need to understand that, and it's best to remember that.

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So we need to have as much as possible a clear view of the end times, but God doesn't want us to fret.

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He doesn't want us to fret. Both amillennialists and postmillennialists believe that, at least most of them do, scripture must be interpreted by the historical grammatical method, except for in certain situations of prophecy.

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These must be interpreted not literally, but spiritually. And so we find that these two disciplines will believe such things as the 10 toes were successive kingdoms in the end of the

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Roman Empire. This fanciful interpretation is actually refuted by Daniel chapter seven, and we will get to that.

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We really will, where it's seen that the 10 kingdoms existed simultaneously. Amillennialists do not believe there will be a thousand -year reign.

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They believe that Christ is sitting on the throne of David now, and the present church age is the kingdom over which he reigns.

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I think his reign is gonna be much more literal and obvious, very obvious, and the people that live under it, the believers that live under it will just be happy as clams.

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Why do they say that? I guess clams always look like they're smiling. That must be it. And I lost my place.

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The fact remains that the thousand -year reign will be a physical reign, and we can see that not only through the prophecy, we can see that not only through the prophecy in Daniel, but also in other places in Scripture.

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So in, and this is 65, the next, yeah, yeah.

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When Christ returns, so God's promises to Israel and to David require a literal, physical kingdom on earth.

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And for those of you who want to look at it, see 2 Samuel 7, 8 through 16, and Psalm 89, 3 through 4.

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When Christ returns, his feet will actually touch the Mount of Olives. What does it do to the

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Mount of Olives when his feet touch them? It splits it, and that's pretty literal in the

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Scripture. In that day, his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle, from east to west, by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north, and the other half toward the south.

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That's very obviously a literal presence in Ephel.

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It's not normal for a mountain to split. I don't know,

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I'd have to look into that. I think that it just depends on where the fault lines are, if that's what

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God's going to use. But remember, sometimes we try to explain things using understanding of scientific principles.

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If God wants to split a mountain the opposite of the fault lines underneath it, it'll be split the opposite. So, now, he could follow,

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I don't know what the fault lines look like under the Mount of Olives. I don't think anybody else does either, but.

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So, okay, that's an interesting concept, that mountains normally split from the east to the west.

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I don't know that. Someone could look into that. We need some earthquakeologists here.

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Seismologists. In Jeremiah's prophecy, it is clear that when the Lord Jesus Christ reigns in that day, he will be reigning over a physical kingdom, which includes

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Israel coming back from all the countries they had been driven into. Jeremiah 23, five through eight. Behold, the days are coming, declares the

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Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he will reign as king and acts wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.

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In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely. And this is his name by which it will be called, the

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Lord our righteousness. Verse seven. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they will no longer say, as the

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Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt. Verse eight, but as the Lord lives, who brought up and led back the descendants of the household of Israel from the north land and from all the countries where I had driven them, then they will live on their own soil.

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Finally, in this verse, Daniel concludes with the statement, again affirming, the sovereignty and the glory of God.

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And I love that Daniel always does this. He always comes back to Jehovah so that we will always remember that this was not an interpretation of a man, not a presentation from a man, but this was from God.

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He comes back to that. And we can trust the dream.

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It is trustworthy and true because it came from God, because it came from Jehovah. So that's what he says.

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Let me just read the last part of verse 44. Verse 45, I mean. So the dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.

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The great God has made known to the king what will take place. So the dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.

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Not Daniel has made known to the king, but Jehovah, but God has made known.

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So any questions? That's a lot of stuff out of one verse. Yes, observation. Yes. No pun intended.

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The observation is that those who do not take Daniel 45 literally must interpret it spiritually, the amillennialists, and in some cases, the postmillennialists.

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And they throw out the literal interpretation. And it's important to remember that as we're looking at this, we have the whole

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Bible. And it's important to slowly but carefully and surely check through scripture for the other places that are referenced by this section, including

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Daniel chapter seven, and Revelation 19, Revelation 20, and other places. As you can see here,

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Zechariah, Jeremiah, that will bring other information to bear on this portion of Daniel.

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And it's our delight to be able to do that. When we get really, really dogmatic about something, it's okay to be dogmatic if you have the fruits of the spirit that accompany that dogma.

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And you probably ought to be right too. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self -control.

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So if you can manifest those as you're certain about the interpretation of Daniel, that will go a long way to helping others.

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And I wish I was able to look you all in the eye and say, I know all of these things for certain.

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I believe them. But what I do know for certain is that Jesus is Lord. And when it says that he will split the mountain of Olives, I just wanna see it.

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I mean, it's a fairly good -sized mountain. It's kind of sloping and there's a lot of ground underneath it that's above sea level, but I just wanna see it.

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It's gonna be awesome. Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and did homage to Daniel and gave orders to present to him an offering and a fragrant incense.

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This was not a normal thing for a king to do, let alone Nebuchadnezzar, the great king.

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For a pagan king to do this to a Jewish captive was unheard of.

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I don't know how many people were in the room at the time, if any, who watched King Nebuchadnezzar fall on his knees.

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And now we're gonna talk about this in a minute here because no man should take homage from any other man. No man should.

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And I think Daniel probably went, now this is me speculating, okay? This is not what the scripture says, but this is me speculating based on what

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I see other places in scripture. When an angel said, get up, get up, get up. Don't worship me. He said that to John.

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Who was the king worshiping? Let's read what he says. Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and did homage to Daniel and gave orders to present to him an offering and a fragrant incense.

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The king then, okay, so it foreshadowed, by the way, what Nebuchadnezzar did, it foreshadowed the way Daniel would generally be treated by the king in Babylon with a couple of difficult interpositions, exceptions.

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The king then presented to Daniel an offering and some incense. This was further reverence to Jehovah, and you will see why here in a minute.

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Something which Jehovah, who had provided the dream and the interpretation, something which

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Daniel frequently made reference to when he was doing all of this and saying all this in front of the king.

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Daniel 47 gives us a clue as to who Nebuchadnezzar was really doing homage to.

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He says, the king answered Daniel and said, surely your God is a God of gods and a

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Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries. So all of the work that Daniel did to remind the king who gave the interpretation was fruitful.

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The king remembered. And since you have been able to reveal this mystery, the king fell on his face and did homage to Daniel.

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And the only reason Daniel didn't tell him to stand back up is because his statement was, surely your God is a

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God of gods. He didn't elevate Daniel in what he said. He was falling down in front of Jehovah.

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Daniel just happened to be standing there. Unbelievable to him that someone, he knew, remember we talked about this back before the world ended?

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That the Babylonians had books and instruction manuals for interpreting dreams.

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Now, if they say this, here's what you tell them. And if they say that, here's what you tell them. Pages and pages and pages of explanation on how to interpret dreams.

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Daniel didn't consult any of those. He was given the revelation by Jehovah God. And Nebuchadnezzar knew the difference because he had watched his father be fooled by these necromancers.

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Daniel didn't tell him to stand back up because his statement was, surely your God is a God of gods and a Lord of kings and the revealer of mysteries since you have been able to reveal this mystery.

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The reverence was to Jehovah, not to Daniel. In this statement, we see that Nebuchadnezzar was all actually doing honor to God and not to Daniel.

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The gifts and incense were a method of thanking Daniel for the work he did at the behest of Jehovah. Jehovah did this, not

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Daniel. Jehovah gets the credit. Daniel makes sure of that. Any comments or questions about that?

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Yes, Mike. He should have said the

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God. Yeah. Where's Josh when you need him?

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Especially the next chapter. Oh yeah. I think you're, whatever the article is there, a definitive or an anarthos, if it's an anarthos noun or not.

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The fact is, Nebuchadnezzar hasn't come to a complete understanding of just who Jehovah is yet.

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And it takes about seven years, if I remember right. And a plenty of hay.

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Yeah, some gravy. And Nebuchadnezzar, I believe, I believe kind of does come around, but it's years later.

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It's years later, it's not now. And we're gonna see that in chapter three when, based on the dream, keep in mind that what happens in chapter three is related to what happens in chapter two.

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Again, as I studied some of the commentators, it's like they forgot that. The chapter two came before chapter three.

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And when we look at the giant image that Nebuchadnezzar created, he didn't just come up and create that out of whole cloth.

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It was part of his dream. Now, he bastardized it, if you will, because he makes it all gold, because he is the great king.

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But I'm stealing my thunder from chapter three. Let's not do that. So then Daniel was promoted.

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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.

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So the king then promotes Daniel. That is the Chaldean word for grew. He grew him is what the

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Persian Chaldean word is there. So Daniel was put in charge over the whole province of Babylon, and he was put in charge of all of the wise men, the supposed wise men, that could not do what he had done by the hand of Jehovah.

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Verse 49, we'll finish up the chapter, and we probably won't start chapter three. We'll talk if there's questions. But Daniel made a request to 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 even, notice this, even with the great power and responsibility that Nebuchadnezzar had just given to Daniel, he was still the king.

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Daniel still had to come to Nebuchadnezzar and ask for his friends to be appointed. He couldn't just independently appoint them himself.

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He had to come to Nebuchadnezzar and ask. So his authority, although great, did not include any authority over the king, and the king probably didn't have to say that.

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Daniel would have been instructed in the history and the tenets and the precepts of Babylonian, of Babylon, and he would have understood that, that he was a court official, a government official.

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He would have understood the structures of power, that there are now certain things he can do without consulting with Nebuchadnezzar, but there are also still certain things that he must always consult with the king, and one of them would be to appoint somebody over other people.

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That's still a kingly responsibility. So thus ends chapter two, possibly, arguably, the greatest section of prophecy recorded in Scripture with the greatest import for still future events.

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The events of the chapter, while largely concerning the future of the world, nevertheless depict

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Jehovah God installing in the greatest kingdom of one of, in the greatest current kingdom, one of Jehovah's servants who would be used greatly to protect the

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Jews and to influence the kings of his generation. As it has been said, like Joseph, Daniel was destined to play an important role in the history of the

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Jewish nation. So, and this is maybe not necessarily premature, but looking at, imagine

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Daniel growing up before the captivity, just a normal Jewish boy. Who would have thought he would have been second in power to the greatest king of the time?

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Did, I mean, you know, it's really hard for us sometimes, but to put that in perspective, as we were growing up, we didn't think about that, and it didn't happen, by the way, but he would have not been thinking, well,

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I think when I grow up, I'm just gonna be second in charge of the world. I'm gonna be vice ruler of, vice regent of the universe.

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Probably never occurred to him, I hope. But so, never underestimate how

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God can use you. Be faithful to him, study his word regularly, understand the principles of scripture, and be ready when he calls you to do something important.

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Because all of the great people of scripture realized that they were called, as Esther said, for such a time as this.

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You don't know what that time is. Daniel didn't know. Shadrach, Hananiah, Mishah, well,

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I've already forgot their Jewish names. I've been using their Persian names so much. Hananiah, Hananiah and his buds.

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I'll have to look them up. I'm having a brain lock. See the gray hair? But those three young men, neither did they, at any given time,

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I'm sure, think that they were going to be prefects over one of the greatest kingdoms that ever existed. So, with that, we're a little early again, but you're not getting your money's worth, but you know where I live.

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Are there any questions? Nathel, yes.

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So Daniel and his three friends, when God wants you to step out of the box, he will give you the skills and the abilities. Remember what

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Daniel did first when this all happened. He called his three friends to prayer. Called his three friends to prayer.

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He knew that they needed prayer. They needed to know God's will, to know God's understanding. Any other comments or questions?

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Even those who resist, yeah, like Jonah. I ain't going that way.

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I'm going to Tarshish. Okay, I ain't going to Nineveh, I guess.

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Let's pray. Lord, thank you for this incredible book. Actually, all of the books of the

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Bible are incredible, but the one we're in right now is the best. And we thank you for it.

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Thank you, Lord, that you choose whom you will choose to use for your glory. Let it always be that those who are used for your glory will give you the glory as Daniel has done, no matter who they are.

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That it will be recognized by the world that servants of God are used by the great God. And we thank you for that in Jesus' name, amen.