Book of Daniel - Ch. 2, Vs. 1-49 (04/28/2019)

Okay, I wasn't the total hold up then, was I? Good to see everyone.

I think we'd like to begin with a prayer. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us this time and this place to come together to worship you and to study your

Holy Scripture. We thank you for your Holy Spirit that you've given us to help us interpret what you have in store for us.

And we thank you for your Son that you've given us to provide a way for us to be reconciled to you.

We'd like to make a special request this morning for one of our brothers who is in the hospital with a serious problem facing him.

Protect him, keep him, protect his family and keep him in your will.

Take him out of his suffering, cure him with no pain and with no serious consequences if it's your will.

But whatever it is, through it all, keep him close to you as he has been close to you.

And keep us close to him and keep him in our hearts. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

And I'm sure that everybody here knows exactly what

I'm talking about. If you don't, John Karpiak is in the hospital with a serious problem with his foot and there's a possibility that it may have to be removed.

But there's a possibility that it will not. And of course our hopes and our prayers are that he get back to as good of health as he can possibly be in.

I know that we all get old and we all, as a result of the curse that Adam brought upon us, and not you

Adam, the original Adam. We do have this law of entropy and things do wind down, they don't get better.

And so we don't, just for a while we seem to grow and increase in our abilities and then we start going downhill.

And that's just part of life. We are in Daniel chapter 2.

We peeked ahead a little bit last week and read some of the first of the chapter.

I'm going to go back to the very beginning of that chapter and also a little bit further than that and say you got to remember that Daniel and his three compatriots had been taken hostage and carried to Babylon.

And they were put in a program, like a three year apprenticeship before they were able to be seen in front of the king.

And they requested that they be allowed to eat their own food, not to be required to eat the food of the king.

And they kind of tested them out and after three years found that they were way better than everybody else.

And that's where chapter 1 ended and where chapter 2 began. Daniel and his three compatriots had passed their first test.

And now we're getting ready for Daniel and his, well especially Daniel and his people to face their second great test.

So here it is. And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams wherewith his spirit was troubled and his sleep broke from him.

Now I brought back Habakkuk chapter 1 verse 5.

And if you'll go there, we'll be there for just a couple of minutes. Habakkuk 1 verse 5.

Behold ye among the heathen and regard and wonder marvelously for I will work a work in your days.

Now whose days? Daniel's days. Those are also Habakkuk's days because they were contemporaries.

In your days I will work a work that you won't believe, though it be told you.

For lo, I will raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land to possess the dwelling places that are not theirs.

This prophecy has now been fulfilled. Daniel and his fellows are hostages in Babylon.

And they, the Chaldeans, are terrible and dreadful. Their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves.

Their horses also are swifter than the leopards and more fierce than the evening wolves.

And their horsemen shall spread themselves and their horsemen shall come from far and shall fly as an eagle that hastened to eat.

They shall come all for violence. Their faces shall sup up as the east wind and they shall gather the captivity as sand.

And they shall scoff at the kings and the princes shall be a scorn unto them. They shall deride every stronghold for they shall heap dust and take it.

And then he comes to an interesting phrase that if you're not careful you like kind of slide over.

Then shall his mind change and he shall pass over and offend imputing this his power to his

God. Who's he talking about? He's talking about Nebuchadnezzar specifically.

He's talking about the Babylonians, the Chaldeans. They shall change their mind and they shall impute the power that they have and the success they have to their gods.

And they'll be judged for it. Of course Nebuchadnezzar did not know this.

He wasn't privy to the book of Habakkuk. Well I guess he could have been but he wasn't. But the

Lord raised up the Babylonians as his agent for the judgment of Israel.

And after they have served their role in the judgment of Israel they themselves will be judged.

Now I've got a question for you. This is a question that Brother Otis always talked about. Even though the

Lord raised the Chaldeans up he still judged them. I've got two questions.

Why did he judge the Babylonians? What did they do wrong?

They glorified their own gods instead of the true and living God. That's exactly right.

They imputed their power, their success, all of the things they had they imputed to their gods.

Not to the real true

God. And the second question I would ask, was that fair? Was it fair that God raised them up to be his judges and then he judged them for doing what he raised them up to do?

It's what they wanted to do. That was the answer that Brother Otis always gave to this question.

Whatever it was, whenever it was, is it fair that we face judgment in light of the fact that in some sense everything we do is predestined by God?

And the answer is yes. Because he judges us, not because of what we do, but because of what we want to do.

We're judged because of what we want to do. If I want to fly and I go to the top of a tall building and jump off, my judgment will come pretty quickly.

And I won't be judged because I was unable to fly. I would be judged because I jumped off the building.

And I jumped off the building because I wanted to. So that's what it always is.

Okay, back to Daniel 2.

And the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerer, and the

Chaldeans, for to show the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.

Now the word Chaldean sometimes refers to all the people native to Chaldea. But here the reference is to a special class of people, a special class of what we call wise men.

Wise men who at this time were mostly stationed in Babylon.

But as time passed they kind of spread out and covered more of the Middle East. And in fact, about 600 years later, some of these wise men appeared on the scene in Bethlehem to give honor and praise to Jesus Christ.

Because they were looking for a star, and they saw it.

Why do you think they were looking for a star? It was a tradition started with Daniel.

He put in their minds to look for the star.

And they considered that as part of their study, looking for the coming king of Jerusalem.

Why do you think all that happened? Because the Lord needed for them to go looking for the king.

And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream.

He's having trouble sleeping at night. And as we continue on, keep this in mind.

What could have been in the dream that so troubled the king that he couldn't sleep at night?

Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Sirach. Now, all of a sudden,

Daniel has been writing this book in Hebrew. And right here in the middle of chapter 4, he changes to Aramaic.

And he stays in Aramaic until the middle of chapter 7, or maybe to the end of chapter 7.

And then he changes back to Hebrew to finish the book. Why would he do such a thing? The middle portion is directed mostly to the

Gentiles. And the two end pieces, mostly to the Hebrews. In any case, he'll finish the book in Hebrew.

He'll begin the book in Hebrew. He'll finish the book in Hebrew. And in the middle, he'll write Aramaic.

But he won't write it all. Anybody know who else writes part of the book of Daniel? King Nebuchadnezzar wrote part of it.

So this pagan king wrote part of our inspired

Bible. That is interesting all by itself. So here's what they say.

O king, live forever. Tell thy servants the dream, and we will show thee the interpretation.

And the king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me. If you will not make known unto me the dream, with the interpretation thereof, you shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dung heap.

I did a little study of that. What they would do is they would take four trees and bend them over and tie them down.

And then they would take the person and tie an arm, an arm, a leg, and a leg to four different trees.

Then they would cut the restraining rope and the trees would spring up and the body would be ripped into four pieces.

That's what he's telling them. This is not going to be a fun thing. He says the thing is gone from me.

Do you think he couldn't remember? A lot of commentaries talk about maybe he forgot some of it.

I don't think so. I think he remembered every word. You couldn't have a dream like he had and not remember it all.

So if he could remember it, why did he tell them he couldn't? We talked about this a little bit yesterday, or not yesterday, last

Sunday. He is in his third year. Counting the

Ascension year, it's his third year, it says here in the second year, but they didn't count the

Ascension year. Three years. Most of these Chaldeans, most of these advisors, were leftovers from his father.

So it's not surprising that Nebuchadnezzar would not totally trust them. He knows that if he tells them to dream, then what they will be able to do is they'll be able to create an interpretation to fit the dream.

And that would not be an interpretation he could rely on. So here's an opportunity for a perfect test.

After all, they claim to receive their information straight from their gods. If their gods know the answers, the gods have to know the question.

So he says, tell your gods to tell you the question, and then tell your gods to tell you the answer, and then you tell me.

That's what he's doing. And if you will not make known the dream to me with the interpretation thereof, you shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill.

But if you show the dream and the interpretation thereof, you shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honor.

Therefore, show me the dream and the interpretation thereof. Well, that was his proposal.

Show me the dream and the interpretation, and I will give you great gifts and much honor. Refuse, and you and all that is yours will be destroyed.

That's the classic carrot and the stick. The carrot, the good things. The stick, the bad things.

So what do you think they did? Do you think they responded to the carrot and the stick? Why not?

Why didn't they respond to the proposal? Because they couldn't.

They couldn't because they didn't know the dream. And if they didn't know the dream, they couldn't interpret it.

So they do what they have to do. They answer again and say, let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation thereof.

The king answered and said, I know of certainty that you would gain time because you see the thing is gone from me.

Now, that's an awkward way of saying this. You say your gods know the dream, and they know the interpretation.

So tell me now, or else suffer the consequences. But if you will not make known to me the dream, there is but one decree for you, for you have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me till the time be changed.

Therefore, tell me the dream, and I shall know that you can show me the interpretation thereof. What he's saying here is, you're lying to buy time.

If you tell me the dream, then I know that your interpretations will be true.

You know the dream, the interpretation you give I can rely on. If you can't do that, then

I know you're lying. Yes, sir. If I know that I've carved an idol out of a stick of wood, it is very difficult for me to believe that that stick of wood can now tell me stuff, because I already know where it came from.

You're exactly right. They create their god, and they really can't worship it. They can pretend to.

They can try to get you to. But deep down inside, they know that it's not true.

And that's where these guys were. They knew that what they said would be made up, because they weren't getting it from the gods.

They were just making up an interpretation to fit the dream.

So here's what they have to say. And the Chaldeans answered before the king and said,

There is not a man upon the earth that can show the king's manner. Were they right? Totally right.

They were 100 % totally right. There was not a man anywhere on the earth that could tell them that. Therefore, there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asks such things at any magician or astrologer or Chaldean.

That's kind of a confession. They know that they're not receiving their information from their gods, that they're simply making it up whole cloth.

Now, they don't admit that part, but they just said there's nobody can do what you're asking them to do. So no one has ever asked that before.

They said it's a rare thing that a king requires. And there is none other that can show it before the king except the gods whose dwelling is not with the flesh.

Well, is that statement true? The first statement was absolutely true.

No man could do it. What about this statement? Except only the gods. It's almost true.

What's wrong with it? Not the gods. The single one God. There is a single one

God. Only the one true God is able to do that. Well, for this cause, the king was angry and very furious.

And he commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. Not just the ones who were standing in front of him talking to him, but all of them.

And the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain. And they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain.

So we know two things about that. We know that Daniel and his fellows are counted now among the wise men.

They've served their three years' apprenticeship, but the king has blessed them, and he has put them into the realm of the advisors.

After all, they were ten times more wise than anyone else. So the king sends his general out to round up all the wise men and kill them.

Fortunately for the other wise men, they came early on to Daniel. And Daniel answered with counsel and wisdom to Ariok, the captain of the king's guard, which was gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon.

And he answered and said to Ariok, the king's captain, Why is the decree so hasty from the king?

Then Ariok made the thing known to Daniel. So now Daniel knows something. Daniel knows that the king is requiring something that men can't do.

Then Daniel went in and desired of the king that he would give him time and that he would show the king the interpretation.

Now, what does Daniel do? Just like we ought to all do when presented with a problem that we can't solve.

Or even, Raj, for being presented with a problem that we think we can solve.

Because after all, we're not going to be able to solve any problem on our own. He went to his house and he made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions.

They're more well known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego by their Babylonian names.

Daniel is always more well known by his original Hebrew name. And so what did they do?

They prayed. They prayed that they would desire the mercies of God of heaven concerning this secret.

That Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. So they sat down and they prayed that the

Lord God will give them insight to the dream and to the interpretation.

And so what happens? Then was the secret revealed unto

Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. So the first thing

Daniel does when he gets the dream, he doesn't run to the king and say,

Oh, king, I now know the answer. He went to the real king and offered thanks.

Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are his.

And he changeth the times and the seasons. He removeth kings and he setteth up kings.

He giveth wisdom unto the wise and knowledge to them that know understanding. He revealeth the deep and secret things.

He knoweth what is in the darkness and the light dwelleth with him.

I thank thee and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who has given me wisdom and might and has made known unto me now what we desired of thee.

For thou hast now made known unto us the king's matter. So that's

Daniel's praise to God. His prayer to God, thanking him for what he has done.

It sums up the theme of the whole book. That is, God is the one who controls all things and grants all wisdom and all might.

So Daniel went into Ariok, whom the king had ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon and said thus to him,

Destroy not the wise men of Babylon. Bring me in before the king and I will show unto the king the interpretation.

So, he went to the captain and said, Take me before the king and I will explain it all to him.

But don't kill all the wise men yet. Now, maybe he shouldn't have said that.

Because we know in chapter 3, the wise men are going to be the source of another problem.

Remember what that is? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are going to be thrown into the fiery furnace at the request of these same wise men.

And of course, they will be destroyed, right? Who will be destroyed? The wise men.

But it will be the Lord's path to doing what

He was going to do anyhow. So, Ariok brought in Daniel before the king in haste.

Ariok was in a hurry. And he said thus unto him, I have found a man of the captives of Judah that I will make known unto the king for the interpretation.

I think that's an interesting question. What did he say? I have found.

He wasn't even looking. He went to kill Daniel and all the wise men.

It was Daniel. So he tries to take credit for Daniel's work.

Isn't that the way it is? It is always the way. Somebody wants to take credit for what someone else does.

I think more doubly interesting is what happens when Daniel has the opportunity to take credit.

Let's go on. I have found a man among the captives of Judah that will make known unto the king the interpretation.

And the king answered and said unto Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which

I have seen and the interpretation thereof? You see, Nebuchadnezzar is still testing. What does he want to know first?

He wants to know first the dream. And after you tell me the dream, I will listen to your interpretation.

And Daniel answered in the presence of the king and said, I think this is interesting too.

The secret which the king has demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers show unto the king.

Daniel now confirms what the other wise man had already told the king.

There is no man able. And that includes Daniel himself. But he also implies in the next verse, neither can any other gods, only the

God in heaven. Let's read the next verse. But there is a God in heaven that reveals secrets and maketh known to the king,

Nebuchadnezzar, what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream and the visions of thy head upon thy bed are these.

Now, before he starts with the dreams, he makes a little aside. As for thee,

O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter.

Who had the dream? Nebuchadnezzar. Where did he have it? In his bed.

What did he reveal? What should happen in the future. And he that revealeth the secrets maketh known to these what shall come to pass.

So who is he saying is going to reveal the secrets to the king? Not I, Daniel, but the

God in heaven. He that revealeth the secrets.

God reveals the secrets, not Daniel. And he goes on to fortify that by saying this.

But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living man, any living.

Well, that kind of says it all, doesn't it? I don't know this.

This secret was not revealed to me because I'm smarter than everybody else. But for their sakes, that shall make known the interpretation to the king that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart.

Now, that was an awkward thing for me to read. The thing, for their sakes, I kept thinking, for whose sake?

I couldn't fit it together, so I did a kind of a word study. That word was one word in Aramaic.

It was dibra. And it's used twice in Daniel.

Once in this chapter, where this phrase, for their sakes, the single word dibra, was also used in Daniel 4 .17.

I rewrote Daniel 4 .17 just a little bit. No, I didn't. I kept it exactly the same.

Daniel 4 .17 is this. This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand is by the word of the holy ones, to the intent that the living might know that the

Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basis of men.

So if you look back at the passage we just read, verse 30 of chapter 2, and rewrote it just a little bit, what was the key word?

To the intent. It would read this way. But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but to the intent that the interpretation shall be made known to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart.

I wish the King James authors had interpreted the word to the intent that, rather than for their sakes.

That would have saved me 30 minutes of confusion. Anyhow, the dream.

He's now ready to start with the dream. Here's why I know that he didn't forget any of it.

Thou, O King, saw'st and beheld a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee, and the form thereof was terrible.

What he saw was a statue of a man, but a really weird man. A man 60 feet tall and 6 feet wide.

No, that times one and a half. 90 feet tall and 9 feet wide.

Ten times as tall as he is wide. I'm about three times as tall as I am wide.

Four times as tall as you are wide is a skinny man.

That would mean if you're 2 feet wide, you'd be 8 feet tall. That'd be skinny.

If I were 8 feet tall and this wide,

I would be a skinny guy. This was ten times really tall and skinny.

That's the first weird thing. The tall, skinny man. This image's head was a fine gold, and his breast and arms of silver, and his belly and his thighs of brass, and his legs of iron, and his feet part iron and part clay.

So you see the statue. Gold head, silver upper body, bronze torso, iron legs, and iron and clay feet.

90 feet tall, 9 feet wide. And thou sawest till a stone was cut out without hands.

That means that this stone came down out of heaven where it was without the help of any man.

And smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay and break them to pieces.

Then was the iron and the clay and the brass and the silver and the gold broken to pieces together and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors.

And the wind carried them away that no place was found for them. Now, that's one of the things that bothered

Nebuchadnezzar. He saw this statue, which he took in some way to represent himself, and saw it being crushed into powder and blown away.

And the stone that smote the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

This is the dream. Okay, king, that's what you dreamt. Now, can you imagine why the

Chaldeans couldn't remember or couldn't figure out the dream? They would have had no way of knowing this, and he would have known it all, and if they had said anything like the head was of gold and the top part was of brass, he would have known they were lying.

If they had even known it was a statue that he was dreaming about, they wouldn't have even known that.

They had no idea what he was dreaming, but Daniel did. And Daniel's description followed line by line exactly what

Nebuchadnezzar remembered dreaming. So now we've got the dream.

And now for the interpretation. I'm going to give you a summary of the interpretation before I read it.

Five empires in succession will rule over Israel. They're pictured here as parts of the statue or the body.

In Daniel 7, the same empires are represented by four great beasts. Now the empires are these,

Babylon, Mesopersia, Medo -Persia rather, Greece, Rome, and then a latter revived

Roman Empire, each differentiated from the previous as indicated by the declining quality of the metal.

It starts off being the greatest, the most valuable, and it goes down until it's iron mixed with clay.

Not to say that the latter kingdoms were weaker, but only they were less valuable.

Oh, in the New Testament, a stone is talked about.

I'm just going to read verse 18 of Luke 20.

Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind to powder.

A stone picturing Christ at His second coming as the Son of Man, as it does in Daniel 7, will destroy the fourth empire in its final reconstructed phase with catastrophic suddenness.

God's total shattering of the Greek power will result in the establishment of His millennial kingdom and after that, continuing on eternally in heaven.

So, that's what's going to happen. That's what's going to be the interpretation of this vision.

Thou, O king, art the king of kings. Thou, O king, art a king of kings.

For the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power and strength and glory.

Where did He get it? From God. So the first thing Daniel does is he praises the king and informs him of the reason you've been successful.

The reason you've got this great kingdom is God gave it to you. And He gave you the power and the might and the strength and the glory to maintain it.

And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven, hath

He given into thy hands and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.

So why is He what He is? Because God made Him so. Your kingdom is immense and powerful.

But here's what He didn't want to hear. But it's not eternal. In fact,

His grandson is going to rule over the last days of that empire.

Then after thee shall rise another kingdom inferior to thee, nor is the one after you eternal.

The Medo -Persian empire. That one's not eternal either. And after that, a third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over the earth.

That's the Greek empire. Alexander the Great. Even more powerful than either of the other two, but also even more fleeting.

It didn't last through one man's lifetime. Well, it did through Alexander the

Great's lifetime, and then it very quickly ceased to exist. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron.

For as much as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things, and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.

That would be the Roman Empire. Now, you know what's interesting about the Roman Empire? How did they build themselves?

What's Rome called? The Eternal City. They built themselves as Eternal Rome.

Were they eternal? No. They were long -lasting, but far from eternal.

And whereas thou saw'st the feet and toes, part of potter's clay and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided.

But there shall be in it the strength of the iron, for as thou saw'st iron mixed with the miry clay.

And as the toes of the feet were part iron and part clay, so were the kingdom be partially strong and partially broken.

And whereas thou saw'st the iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seat of men, but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.

And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed.

And the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break into pieces and consume all of these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.

For as much as thou saw'st that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, without any help of men, and that it break into pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great

God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter. And this dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof is sure.

So now King Nebuchadnezzar falls on his face. Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and worshipped

Daniel. Well, he first of all worshipped the wrong thing. And he commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odors unto

Daniel. And the king answered to Daniel and said, Of truth it is that your

God is a God of gods. Okay, what did he say there?

Daniel, your God. He didn't say my God. He said, Daniel, your God is the

God of all the gods. He is the top God. You know, that is dog spelled backward, you know.

That's intriguing, too. I just thought of that. If you hadn't said top dog,

I wouldn't have thought of God being dog spelled backward. That's the little dog. And your

God, your God is the God of gods and a Lord of kings and a revealer of secrets, seeing that thou couldest reveal this secret.

Not only could you tell me the dream, you could tell me the interpretation. Then the king made Daniel a great man and gave him many gifts and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and the chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon.

So who is the top dog amongst the wise men now? Daniel. Then Daniel requested the king and he sent

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon.

So they were under Daniel to do the work of the province, but Daniel sat in the gate of the king.

So Daniel is now the advisor to the king. Now sometime early in the next chapter,

Daniel is apparently sent on a mission to the king somewhere because he's out of town when the next great event happens.

And we'll see that. Any comments? Yes, ma 'am. Is it not the sorcerers would be able to, didn't they interpret things in dreams or was it always just, they might get things from the ideas or whatever or they don't just come up with them, they might be demons.

That's kind of what I'm wondering. I think that there's some of that. I think there is some, there's enough, there was enough things that they could predict that did actually happen that they were viewed as being able to do that.

And what's their source? Maybe their source is Satan because we know that Satan can reveal things, but only those things that God allows him to reveal.

That's right. He can't read your mind. He can't understand what the dream of Nebuchadnezzar was.

Well, that's why I think there were, because then there were, but you're right, it's going to be some kind of made -up thing.

But I think, is it, what was the, I can't remember exactly where, but it was a woman, right?

And she could tell the future? Yeah, and he cured her. He cured her of that and got in big trouble.

That's, yeah. She's making her money. They're evil.

There are limitations and they're limited only by what God allows them to do. I mean, we can all agree to that.

And so you've got to take these sorcerers, the fortune tellers, the

Ouija board operators, you've got to take those seriously enough to stay away from them.

Yeah, I felt like that's where you're trying to go. They have enough power that it behooves us to stay away from them.

Yes, sir. Mm -hmm.

All of those things, all of those things are portals for Satan to get a foothold in you.

And it's best to stay away from them. Yes. Because there's ten of them?

Yes. Yes, and there was times of greater certainty than others.

There was a time when there were exactly ten of them. Yes. And so there's the, okay, all the biblical scholars said, this is it.

It's the kingdom. It is the ten toes, the ten kings, but then they got some extra ones, and now they got too many.

Too many toes. They got too many toes. So I don't know.

You're indeed correct. That is part of the thinking of a lot of biblical scholars.

We will one day know. We will one day know. And I'm afraid that it may be something that we know during my time, and I don't have too much time left.

I don't have too much time. I have less than 40 years left. Probably.

My people live to be old. Anything else?

Mm -hmm. Well, that's what the prayer is. Nevertheless, it comes quickly. Even so,

I was trying to think of the word. Even so, come quickly. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, and thank you for all your many gifts.

Thank you for bringing us together. Thank you for giving us your Holy Word and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for giving us your

Son. Go forth through the rest of the service today, protect

Brother David as he delivers his message, and have us to receive the message that you want us to receive.

And we understand that each one of us may get a different message from the one single message that Brother David brings.