A King's Dream. Books of Daniel and Revelation.

 Continued from previous post:

In Daniel Chapter 2 we are told of an important event that will show how accurate Bible prophecy is.  One night king Nebuchadnezzar had a dream that really upset him but he could not remember it.  He called all his wise men and asked them to tell him the dream and what it meant, but they could not.  Word got around the palace that the king was furious and had decreed that all the wise men should be killed.  When Daniel heard this he went to the king and asked for time to learn what the dream was and what it meant.  The king granted his request and Daniel got with his friends for an urgent prayer meeting.

 That night God revealed to Daniel what the dream was and the next day he was taken to the king and told him everything.

You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was awesome.  The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.  You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them.  Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found.  But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.  Daniel 2:31-35

The king had dreamed of a statue made of different kinds of materials.  The head was gold, the breast and arms were silver, the belly and thighs were bronze, the legs were iron, and the feet were a mixture of iron and clay.  But in the dream a stone came flying at the statue’s feet and pulverized the entire statue.  Then the stone itself grew to be a huge mountain, so big that it filled the entire earth. 

 Daniel explained that each of the parts of the statue represented different kingdoms that would rule the world. 

 "You are the head of gold.  After you there will arise another kingdom inferior to you, then another third kingdom of bronze, which will rule over all the earth.  Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron; inasmuch as iron crushes and shatters all things, so, like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these in pieces.  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, inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with common clay.  As 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.  And in that you saw the iron mixed with 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.  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; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever.  Inasmuch 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 God has made known to the king what will take place in the future…"  Daniel 2:38-45 

Now we must ask ourselves how history has played out and if Daniel’s interpretation of the dream was correct.  He told king Nebuchadnezzar that he was the head of gold, but Daniel did not name the other kingdoms by name.  Looking back, we know what the kingdoms were.

The Image:

Head - made of Gold - represents Babylon

Breast & Arms - made of Silver - represents Persia

Belly & Thighs - made of Bronze - represents Greece

Legs - made of Iron - represents Rome

Feet - made of Iron and Clay - represents weak and strong nations

And the stone that pulverized the statue represents Jesus setting up his kingdom and ruling for eternity.

 

God's Contract with the Children of Israel.

 

“The past causes the present, and so the future.  Any time we try to know why something happened…we have to look for factors that took shape earlier.” (17)

  We start this story way back in the 13^th Century BCE when God brought the Hebrews (see Appendix 1) out of slavery in Egypt and gave them their own land.

 

God offered them a deal; God would take care of the Hebrews if they would serve him.  The Hebrews agreed, they entered the Promised Land, and all went well for a while. 

But as time passed, the Hebrews split into two different kingdoms and both began to ignore their side of the bargain they had made with God.  God used prophets to beg the people to return to him but that did not work.  So then God sent warnings, saying if they did not keep their side of the deal, he would be forced to withdraw his protection and, in effect, punish them. 

Sometimes a good king would come to power that would listen and lead the people back to worshipping God, but that did not happen often and, when it did happen, it did not last long.  The Northern half of the split Hebrew kingdom, called Israel, was the worst and evil king after evil king ignored God’s pleadings and warnings.  God finally withdrew his protection and, in the year 722 BCE, the Assyrian army invaded, killing and taking prisoners, virtually wiping out the entire Northern kingdom.

But the Southern kingdom had not yet reached the end of its probation, if you will.  For the most part the people remained rebellious, but God continued to plead with them and warn them until finally, more than a century after the Northern kingdom fell, he had to give up on the Southern kingdom.  By this time the Assyrian kingdom was no longer the big dog in the area…Babylon had become the world’s dominant empire and was swallowing up country after country. 

In Judah, the Southern kingdom, an evil king named Jehoiakim rose to the throne in the capitol city of Jerusalem.  Little did he know what was going to happen during his short reign…God was fed up with Judah and had withdrawn his protection.  During the third year of Jehoiakim’s turn as king, king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon marched his army into Judah and conquered the entire country.

Good people often get caught up in bad things, and not all of Judah had abandoned the worship of God.  A young man named Daniel, and several of his friends, were faithful servants of God but when Judah fell to Nebuchadnezzar, they were caught up in the fray and taken as prisoners to the capitol city of Babylon.  Here Daniel found favor with those in power and was assigned to work in the palace. 

 

Knowledge Increased. The Books of Daniel and Revelation.

 

(Liz wrote her book in 2007, so the statistics will be different now.)

But Jesus said that famine, earthquakes and the escalation of war was not yet the end, it was only the beginning of the birth pangs.  Birth pangs?  What does a woman in labor have to do with anything?

Labor can be long and painful.  Ask any mother and she will tell you that the beginning of labor pains is only the start of the birthing process.  Jesus used this familiar analogy to make the point that famines, earthquakes, and the escalation of war in the end time were only the first signs; this is the start of the painful end to the world.

We have looked at only one quote from the Bible describing what will happen as the world begins to enter the closing chapters of its long saga.  Here is another. 

 

… until the end of time; many will go back and forth, and knowledge will increase.  Daniel 12: 4

 When you think of someone going ‘back and forth’, you imagine someone going to one place, then to another, then back to the first place, then back to the other.  Or perhaps you think of two people having a conversation about something where one person speaks, then the other, then the first speaks again, and then the other. 

But why is this ‘back and forth’ significant to the end of time?  People have always traveled and communicated so what is different at the end of time compared to the rest of history?  Speed!  We do not have to walk or ride a horse to get from here to there; we can now drive or fly and get to our destination quickly.  And we are not limited to writing a letter or traveling long distances to speak face to face; we can use the telephone or email and communicate instantly.

 The last part of the verse we are looking at talks about knowledge increasing.  The fact is that the past century has seen more advances in science and technology than all the advances made in the previous two thousand years.  Robert Brown, a dean at the University of North Carolina, once said: “It's estimated that medical knowledge, for example, doubles every seven years, and scientific knowledge doubles every twenty years. The total written knowledge in the world is said to have doubled between 1450 and 1750, and then to have doubled again between 1750 and 1900. Between 1900 and 1950, human knowledge doubled once more, and then again from 1950 to 1975. Now, it is believed to double every 900 days. By the year 2020, global knowledge is predicted to double every 72 days!” (7)

 

Continued from previous post.

In the past, wars were not global events involving millions of people.  Both World War I and World War II are so named because much of the world was involved.  That had never happened before in history, and yet it happened twice in less than 30 years.  In World War II alone, about 93 million soldiers were fighting on both sides and about 22 million of them were killed.  But amazingly, over 30 million civilians died during that war! (1)  Some estimates put the total death count from World War II at over 60 million! 

And wars have continued around the globe.  In 1993, the Associated Press reported that another 23 million plus people have died in various wars since 1945. (2)

In part of that verse we looked at in Matthew 24, Jesus also said there would be famines and earthquakes.  There have always been famines and earthquakes so that is not such a big prophetic remark, is it?  Well, we have seen that the world has become involved in bigger and bloodier wars lately, so have there been more and worse famines and earthquakes as well?

In 1996 it was reported that 800 million people go hungry every day, and that “Some 40,000 hunger-related deaths occur every day…” (3)  Did you know that 2000 years ago, when Jesus was walking the Earth, there were only about 300 million people alive on the whole planet? (4)  This means that even if every person on the planet in Jesus’ time were hungry, it still would not come close to the problem we have today.

Okay, famines are worse nowadays.  What about earthquakes?  Between the years 1000 and 1800 there were only 21 major earthquakes. Eight hundred years and only 21 major earthquakes does not seem so bad.  But between 1800 and 1900 there were 18…almost as many earthquakes but in only one-eighth the time span.  Between 1900 and 1950 the number grew to 33.  Thirty-three major earthquakes in only 50 years?  Ouch!  And then there were 93 major earthquakes between the years 1950 and 1991. (5)  Wow!  More and more major earthquakes are occurring all the time. 

But what about right now?  What has happened in the past 15 years or so?  Well, according to the United States Geological Survey, the world has seen 15 monster earthquakes measuring over 8.0 on the Richter scale (see Appendix 1) between 1991 and 2006!  In that same time period there have been 240 earthquakes measuring between 7.0 and 7.9 on the Richter scale. (6)

 I would say that Jesus is 3 for 3 on his prophecy about wars, famines and earthquakes.

The Books of Daniel and Revelation.

 

I'm having trouble downloading the pictures in my sister's book. I'll be working on that.

A few years ago, I saw a bumper sticker that made me laugh out loud, and every time I think about it I laugh again.  It says, “Where am I going, and why am I in this hand basket?”  This pretty much sums up the state of this world today; it seems to be going to hell in a hand basket. 

But is this true?  Well, for millions of us alive today, especially those of us living in industrialized nations, our standard of living and our quality of life are better than at any time in history.  

Medicine has made advances at an exponential rate over the past century, finding cures for much of what used to contribute to shorter life spans.

We can communicate with each other instantly by telephone or email, and visually through satellite feeds or from our homes via the Internet.

And we can get from place to place faster than ever.

So why do many of us often feel as though the world is doomed?  Could it be because it IS doomed and we know it?  Or are we simply running around like Chicken Little, screaming that the sky is falling?

The Bible has a lot to say about the end time of this world, so perhaps we should find out if we are living in the end time or if we are just worrying for no reason.

You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars.  See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end.  For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.  But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.  Matt. 24:6-8

 Most Bible scholars agree that what Jesus said in Matthew Chapter 24 applies both to what happened on a small scale -- the fall of the city of Jerusalem in the year 70 CE (see Appendix 1) - and what will happen on a large scale to the world at the end time.  So let’s look at how this applies to our world today.

There have always been wars, so what is so special about stating the obvious?  Well, yes, there have always been wars, but not on the scale we have seen in the past century.

The Long Wait. (Or Waiting for God to do Something.)

Around 4 years ago, God told my sister to prepare for a disaster of some kind. She was to buy equipment to survive in the mountains. For two years she bought these things from Amazon and was finally ready. She expected something to happen very soon, so did I. She was very impatient and wondered why God was taking so long to fulfill his words. She has now learned patience and is waiting on Him.

All this time, I’ve been reminded of how God made promises to many people in the Bible, but they had to wait for many years for their appearance.

Noah was told to build a boat. God told him the exact measurements and wood that he must use. Noah did this, but it took 120 years for him to finish. All the while, he preached to the people and warned them, but none believed him, and in the end only he and his family went into the ark and were saved.

God promised Abraham he would give him a son, but God waited for 20 years until his wife Sarah conceived. During that time of waiting, Abraham sinned and took matters into his own hands and took his wife’s slave, Hagar, and had a son, Ishmael, by her. This caused great heartache to all concerned. But God was with Hagar and Ishmael and helped them when they were forced to leave Abraham’s camp.

Moses was told he would rescue the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. He killed one Egyptian and was forced to flee for his life to the desert. There he lived for 40 years as a shepherd. He was humbled and close to God and now was ready for God to use him.

The Israelites were in the desert for forty years because they didn’t trust in God to help them fight for the land in Caanan. God waited until a new generation arose who would trust him to help them.

David was anointed King of Israel when he was very young. Saul was king at the time and he was jealous of David and tried to kill him. David fled and lived in the caves and mountains for around 20 years until he was finally crowned King of Israel.

The prophet Daniel was taken prisoner from Jerusalem, castrated and brought into King Nebuchadnezzar’s palace. He was taught the laws and ways of the Babylonians and given a job. He was exiled there for 70 years, when Cyrus defeated the Babylonians. God had made a promise that Cyrus would let the Jews go back to Jerusalem and rebuild it. Cyrus read the promise written years before and he obeyed God and did that.

After Jesus was crucified, arose from the dead and went back to heaven, many believers thought he would return right away. None of them knew it would be many years before his return. Perhaps some of the disciples knew this though.

In the 1980s, I noticed the rise of Christians getting deeply involved in politics. I knew from reading the book of Revelation, the end times would be when politics and religion would unite to persecute people in the Western nations. I thought Jesus might be returning very soon. Well, it’s been around 40 years and he hasn’t, but politics and religion are now hand in hand in the Republican Party. Christians have protested against gay people and made a fuss about everything they don’t like.

One thing I know for sure, none of the early Christians, nor Jesus himself, would have ever protested against the Romans or the Greeks. They told the people who joined their churches not to live as the Romans and Greeks lived. They told them of the love, mercy and forgiveness of God and how to live a noble life. The Apostle Paul even said he would have nothing to do with judging those who weren’t Christians. That was up to God.

Some of the year spans in this article might be off and few years, but I am 74 now and don’t feel like checking everything. May the Lord bless you with his light and presence.

 

The Civil War in Our Hearts.

 

I listened to a sermon last week by Timothy Keller on his podcast, “Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life.” What I learned helped me tremendously in my walk with God. He taught about the spiritual warfare than lies in each human heart. How when we may not want to do something we know is wrong, but we do it anyway. How we may want to act better, but we can’t. Then he spoke on how we can do better with Jesus.

I came upon this sermon after a week of personal trials, both physical and mental. I was feeling very depressed about my reaction to these trials. I know Christians should bear trials with patience and endurance. But sometimes, when my trials seem overwhelming, I revert to my old stand-by: “I cannot bear this. I hate my life. Why do you (God) put people on earth to suffer? I’ve had enough of suffering. When is my life finally going to be over? Please just kill me.”

I’m sure these statements shock normal (if there are any) people. I’m not normal, I have a few mental illnesses, like PTSD, social phobia, dissociation etc. I have a sister who is also sick and, thank God, understands me.

So, as I said, I revert to this kind of thinking after I think I have it licked. I learned my lesson. I’ve read an armful of books on why God allows suffering. I’ve prayed about this and read the Bible every day. I like God, and sometimes don’t like him. This comes and goes. Sometimes I think I actually love him, but I’m not sure if that is sincere.

After listening to the sermon, I began to understand something. I never thought of my depressive thoughts as being a temptation to sin. I thought of them as a tangible outpouring of who I am. I knew a lustful thought was a temptation, but angry depressing thoughts about God?

So, just as I talk to God immediately about lustful thoughts and ask him to make me think of something else, I can do that with those thoughts of anger against him. It isn’t any worse than a lustful thought. I don’t have to feel hopeless and see my inner self as a rebel.

Anyway, I’ve put some links here to help you find these sermons. I listen to Tim Keller on Apple podcasts, but there are dozens of places to find him online. I hope these sermons will help someone else, as they helped me. God be with you all.

https://www.oneplace.com/ministries/gospel-in-life/listen/the-war-between-your-selves-part-1-1168407.html

The War Between Your Selves (Part 2) – Listen to Gospel in Life with Tim Keller, May 31, 2024 (oneplace.com)

War Between Your Selves (Part 1) | Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life Podcast (everand.com)

Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life: The War Between Your Selves (Part 2) on Apple Podcasts