 Okay I'll come back everybody to our second lecture on BC 308 revelation and Daniel We are going to get started looking into Daniel So let's you know all of us I have a virus with us because they're going to read the Read through all the prophetic text in Daniel Each class and then we'll take time to understand that So Daniel chapter 2 We are all familiar with the background of the story, but just to review it at this time Daniel is serving in The courts of King Nebuchadnezzar So one day Nebuchadnezzar wakes up he says I know I had a dream, but I don't know what the dream is So he calls all the wise men in his coach He says I want all of you To find out what is the dream? I had a dream. I want you to find out. What is the dream? And I want you to tell me the meaning of the tree So it's a double challenge because first of all the King He probably doesn't remember the dream properly. He knows he had a dream So the double challenge you're to tell him what the dream is and you also tell them meaning and If you don't you're going to be killed Advanced take the seriously You better tell me better get to work and tell me what my dream was and what is the meaning of the dream? so None of them are able to do it And the King's order is if you don't do it, you're going to be killed So it's a very very difficult situation and said this time the Daniel You know close to the commander-in-chief and says just give me one night Come back You know don't carry out the execution of anyone now and that night Daniel goes along with his friends They pray and God speaks to Daniel and God reveals In a dream he reveals to Daniel the dream and the meaning of it So and then the Daniel goes and he presents that to the King So we're going to focus in on the me the dream and the meaning of the dream be able We will read this that part. So we're going to read Daniel chapter 2 versus 31 to 40 let's say 45 Daniel chapter 2 31 to 45 We will you know, I just like to Invite people students in the class If each of us can just take turns and read two verses each, right? Anybody can start home. There's no particular order My two verses each Daniel chapter 2 31 to 45 Let's read it quickly and let's try to understand it. Please anyone can start You Oh King We are watching and behold a great image this great image whose splendor was excellent stood before you and its Form was awesome This image is head was of fine gold its chest and arms of silver It's very and thighs of bronze It's leg of iron its feet partly of iron and partly of clay You watched while a stone was cut out with Without hands Which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and it and broke them in pieces Then the iron the clay the bronze the silver and the gold were crushed together And became like shaft from the summer Trashing from summer stretching floors The wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and spilled the whole earth This is the dream now we tell now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king You oh king are a king of kings for the god of heaven has given you a kingdom Power strength and glory and wherever the children of man dwell Or the beast of the field and the birds of the heaven He has given them into your hand and has made you ruler over them all You are this head of gold But after you shall arise another kingdom in birth to yours Then another a third kingdom of Bronze we shall rule over all the earth and the fourth kingdom shall be As strong as iron as much as iron breaks Into pieces and shepherds everything and like iron that crushes that Kindle will break in pieces and crush all the others wish 41 Whereas you saw the feet and those partly of porters clay and partly of iron the kingdom shall be divided Yet the strength of the iron shall be in it just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay So the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men But they will not adhere to one another just as iron does not mix with clay And in the days of these kings the god of heaven will set up a kingdom Which shall never be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to other people It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms And it shall stand forever Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountains without hands And that it broke in pieces the iron the bronze the clay the silver and the gold The great god has made known to the king what will come to pass after this The dream is certain and the interpretation is sure Amen. Thank you. Thank you So let me just share So this is an amazing You know a start to what we are going to see it in the book of daniel and And I'm just going into I'm just putting the image down the sharing the image that's in the notes. So Daniel receives from god The dream and the interpretation And so he tells the dream it says king you saw a big image You know, yes, somebody has You know created this big this drawing Which is useful And each part of this image was made of different metal Interesting okay The head was gold This is the end of chapter two of study two the chest part was silver the thigh part thigh was of Brock brass or bronze The feet the legs were of iron and the feet Was a mix of iron and clay Right, so he says king you saw this image And I can have any strain. This is so we call this prophetic imagery meaning god is speaking through the image He's giving messages giving a message Through the image. So when we you know there are times when god will speak to us In dreams or in visions and he gives us images He gives us pictures and the pictures have meaning and this is a beautiful example And so king never goodness is seeing this image and you know, we can try to imagine this Okay, you know in the dream. He sees this image gold silver bronze Iron and very strange the feet and the toes are a mix of iron and clay But there is meaning to all of this And then he sees this huge round rock coming from the heavens It is not It is not cut out with men's hands meaning it is something heavenly You know just something outside of this realm earth realm. It's not gonna and this big rock comes And it crushes this image Just literally crushes it Makes it like dust so that it can just be blown away by the wind like the chap That means it's these whatever was contained or whatever is represented by this image will not be remembered And this big rock big the rock becomes a big mountain mountain So That is the dream So you can imagine everything is a big sound. He remembers. He has a dream now Of course, he forgot what the dream is but if you if you think this is what he had a dream This is the dream he had And everything in this dream is having a message. It's it's has meaning So god gives daniel the interpretation of us. What was the interpretation? Each part of the image What does each part of the image represent? As you can see as daniel interpreted each part of the image is representing a kingdom or We can use the word empire right, so The gold part represents one kingdom one empire next Part the the Chest silver represents another empire because he says after you was 39 After you will arise another kingdom. So another empire The the waist made of brass of bronze represents another kingdom another empire And The feet of iron represents another empire which will arise after this So what does daniel say what or what is god speaking? Through this image He is giving a sequence He's giving history and in advance if you would like to say that way He's telling the king and he's through through this dream. Of course revealing it to the people Here are the coming kingdoms And there's going to come one other kingdom After this then there'll be another kingdom Then there will be another king now what we understand about the the Kingdom that was of iron is the reason he's using iron is it's going to be very strong you know, he says here was 40 as strong as iron It's going to crush all others meaning this particular kingdom the iron king is going to be very strong very powerful Then after that what's going to happen after that this Part of this iron kingdom will get mixed with the rest of the people of the earth Is what he's saying because that is representing the toast that means This iron kingdom is is in in in one way is going to disintegrate. It's going to become small small small pieces And it's going to be mingled with people from every other part of the earth That is the toast here was 42 Almost 41 42 The kingdom shall be divided it's become very You know species and it's going to be mixed Was 43 it's going to mix with all the other people and very significant was 44 in the days of these kings that means This this disintegrated broken down mingled kingdom and there are kings or leaders there at that time At that time Was 44 god of heaven will set up his kingdom on the earth So now he's talking about a fifth kingdom Which is a kingdom from heaven You know All right Yeah, or I should say maybe the sixth one because if you look at that the feet and the toes as another separate kingdom starting from Babylonians Babylonian Legion Persian the Greeks the Romans another kingdom Then in that time God's kingdom will be set here upon the earth now As I had mentioned earlier The interpretation is contained right here within the same chapter Right now. It's only a high level. It's meaning he's not given the names of these kingdoms That will come later in the later chapters But this dream Daniel chapter two Is like the framework for everything that is going to be revealed in the coming chapters in Daniel So as we go through the remaining chapters We are all and adding more details to each part of the stream Telling us, you know, which kingdom these kingdoms are What's going to happen during those kingdoms and so on so right So chapter two is like the outline. I'm giving you the outline and I will start adding the details As we go into the future chapters Right. So in this diagram that I'm that you're seeing on the screen I've I've mentioned the names of the empires Babylonians meets purges and all that is not given in this chapter The only detail that we can say is in In verse 38 it says you are this head of gold. So head of gold. We know you are Okay, Babylonian. That's that is given to us The others are not given in this chapter. It will come in the future chapters But in chapter two, he says What do we know these are all representing kingdoms Which are going to come one after the other The first kingdom has been identified Head of gold. It's you Babylonia Never goodness. It's you Babylonia kingdom. It's you other kingdoms names not given. It's just saying, okay It's coming like this what we know is legs of iron it's going to be very strong kingdom very powerful kingdom Then that is going to be broken down into many many small pieces It is going to be mixed with all the other people of the earth meaning people is going to become a very mixed area And it is in that time that god will set up his kingdom on so that detail is given to us So the kingdom have been on us is going to take place right now This is getting ahead of myself, but I just want you to think about this right um The roman empire and we will talk more about this the roman empire Like we've mentioned in the introduction They started somewhere around 16 bc And they continued up to about 14 15 ad now in between they were divided And and and one part the eastern part of it. I think yeah, uh Dismant like so one part of it lasted only till about 450 ad But the other part of it continued till about 1458 which we have given in the introduction That's the roman empire which is this very strong empire So the roman empire is of special interest to us why because daniel said After that empire that will be broken down into small small small pieces And it will be mixed with every bit people from all other parts of the world It will get mixed And if you look at what is so the roman empire Existed all around the mediterranean From ron italy which is modern-day italy it extended west to Almost all the way to the what is modern-day spain Covered a major part of europe modern-day europe And it came across into asia which included a little bit of turkey Covered alongside the mediterranean which included you know, which includes israel and Nations around it and part of northern africa. So that was the roman empire at its Heights it covered all that region around so For us today That region is of very of great interest why because daniel said That region that roman empire would then be broken into small small small parts And it will be mixed with all other people from the All other kinds of races of people will all be mixed And that is what we are seeing primarily across the across europe and in these regions When you look at europe today We have what is called as the european union But what it is? What is it made of? So all these little little little countries so-and-so small countries all broken yeah, lots of countries and These countries have people from just all in almost all parts of the world The seed of men like people from everywhere living across europe and across what was The former roman empire So we are actually seeing Versus 41 40 to 43. We are actually seeing it happen before our eyes That's what daniel said It will be the toes the the feet will be iron mixed with clay What used to be parts of the former roman empires now small small small Countries lead led by different leaders And it's all mixed there are people from almost different parts of many different parts of the world living in all these areas And so we are living in the time of daniel chapter 40 times of the two versus 42 43 And we are now ready for this 44 Because he said In the times and the days of these kings kings represents leaders leaders were heading up You know kingdoms or territories countries In the days of these kings When you're seeing this happen, that's the time The god of heaven is going to come And set up his kingdom here on So it's very very interesting And that's why we look at what's happening around europe and there are more details are going to come in the future chapters that we go into all right So this chapter two is like an outline for all that is going to be revealed to us in the coming chapters Let me pause before we go forward and see there are any questions on chapter two Any questions on chapter two everyone This together Okay, john john's question um, this is iron and clay have anything to do with democracy um My my response to that would be you know, it's a very good question. Good question, right? My response to that would be it is better to stay with the okay So this actually sparks a thought that I that I need to highlight When we interpret text let's pick up on the biblical typology that's being used All right, so example What does a mountain represent? What does a mountain represent? What will we think so? Think of a huge Sorry John something very huge now Based on what we are seeing in this text What when you see mountain, what will it represent? Based on what is given in the text? So he says, you know, he says verse 35 The stone became a great mountain What then what does he say about the mountain? verse 44 God will set up Kingdom So in our minds, we should start making in our our catalogue mountain So this is biblical typology, right? We're using bible itself to create a catalogue of what do different images mean Mountain what can it mean in the bible in the bible? It can mean a kingdom How do we know because verse 35 That stone became a great mountain What is the mountain? God will set up a kingdom. What's what? So a mountain represents kingdom. So we started kind of making our catalogue, right? So similarly We Look at the texts And in the text, what does I and what would I what does iron represents? And what is clay represents? In the text. So how did he interpret in verse 41? as strong as iron iron representing strength and something that has a lot of It was was 40. I'm looking for spotty like iron that crushes So he's talking iron according to the context of text is representing strength and very you know very strong influence What does clay represents? Yeah, according to the text verse 43 iron mixed with clay and in the text the clay is representing people from All races That is what's 43 You see the iron mixed with ceramic clay. They will mingle with the seed of man All right So the text is itself is giving us that What that image represents? Kingdom, sorry mountain image represents kingdom iron represents strength influence clay represents seed of man meaning people of all races Okay, so we can start creating a catalog in our minds. Okay This is prophetic imagery When god is giving us these kinds of images Biblically This is what they represent now keep in mind that sometimes one image could have multiple meanings, right? That they're looking at the text the texture So according to the text Iron is signifying something very strong in its influence in the way it controls things Clay is just talking about different races people So my response to that question would be We will stay with the meaning given to us in the text and You know, I'm sure that And there are other people who are interpreting these things. They could say okay represents, you know Communism iron iron could represent communism and play can represent democracy and You know, they may they may say some things generally, you know But it is outside of the text of scripture. And so we shouldn't go with that It's okay to listen the people will say lots of things But if you stay with the text of scripture The text itself is giving us a meaning All those images iron means this clay means this mountain means this Each part of the image means this so we will stay with that The meaning given to us in the text itself Yeah Good any other questions I just want to make sure whether I'm understanding things, right? So inverse or you said 43 and 44 all the time that we are living in right now and the kingdom That's gonna come. I think Yeah, when verse 44 the god the god of heaven will set up a kingdom. It's it talks about the future I believe until that I'm right. So When it says inverse 44 The kingdom shall not be left to other people and it says it shall break in pieces and consume All these kingdoms. So what does this line means like Whether the kingdom of God the heaven is going to be broken in pieces And what are the kingdoms that it's going to consume? What what's the interpretation of this verse 44 that's Okay, so Again, just think about the dream. There's this big rock coming and it's crushing the image That means it's crushing all these previous kingdoms And these previous kingdoms are removed Right, they will not so just these And the kingdom shall not be left to itself break in pieces consume all these kingdoms So the kingdom of heaven is going to be so powerful That all these other kingdoms will be Taken out of the way. They will not even be remembered. It's gone So that is basically so if you ask me what it is, it is the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. So when the Lord Jesus Sets up his kingdom on the earth He's going to rule and reign for 1000 years on the earth That is this kingdom that's coming from heaven Which you know, we will see in revelation later on Chapter 20 he will rule and reign for 1000 years. That means his kingdom Will supersede all these other kingdoms And as as a prophet of the increase of his governments And his dominion there will be no end So that's how great this kingdom will be it will supersede all these other kingdoms All other previous kingdoms kingdom of Christ. That's what he's saying and was Any other questions on Chapter two Yes, baby Yeah, yes, best. Um, I was Thinking about like most of these prophecies in daniel talk about these four kingdoms The babelonian Meda persian greek roman then about the kingdom of god So I was wondering like In history like we do see the rice and fall of other empires But that's never mentioned So is it because of uh Was there scope Not like the other empires. Is it because of that or Any any particular reason why these four kingdoms are specifically mentioned? Yeah, good question. Um, my response to that would be because of the Geograph geography on which These prophecies are focused so Um As daniel's prophesying he's speaking primarily about the kingdoms that um Came one after the other around the mediterranean So he did not prophesy like like he said there were many other empires and kingdoms and other parts of the other regions of the world They came and went but His main focus was on this region Now even within this region, we know that subsequent to the roman empire In this region, there were much other smaller kingdoms that came and went the um The celestia northern southern kingdoms then came the ottoman and then the turps and then um We see more recent world history and You know the adept nations were established and so in that part of the world but I think the prophecies are Concerning primarily primarily the region around the mediterranean that where the actual all this biblical context is and He's speaking to us about what will happen there and we also see in scripture that there is a gap from the roman empire end of the roman empire And then the transition goes to the end of the age So that gap Because he's not talking about all the empires that came on after the roman empire That gap Is because the focus Then changes to you know what we refer to as the church age So right now we are in the church age So remember around the time of the roman empire came the messiah Jesus Christ the lord jesus came The church was born The focus then changed now to the church age. So that's a gap of about 2000 years and then At the end of the church age After the church is taken out of the way raptured The focus then changes back to israel which is uh, what we refer to as Daniel 70th week So the church age the scriptures call it the times of the gentiles Focus has gone changed from What's happening in and around israel to what's happening around the world in preaching the Gentiles with the gospel The times of the Gentiles the church age End of the church age focus shifts back to israel The last seven years that's referred to as Daniel 70th week or and the time of jacob's trouble or And it's it's it's a focus on israel and then with that and the You know all of the prophecies all prophets will be fulfilled and we are then ushered into the millennium So for these two reasons one is The geography that's involved It's primarily what's happening around the Mediterranean second Is because of the dispensation of the timeline of what the the time is happening uh the prophecies deal with primarily Gods working with the people of israel and how they are being affected And so there's this big gap of About 2000 years During which time we know that you know a lot of other things were happening in the Mediterranean, but the focus is on Uh, the church is a different dispensation. So I would you know look at it from both these perspectives Sure, thank you best Okay, any other questions all right, so Um, so chapter two is kind of giving us, you know, like it's almost like an introduction or an outline to what's going to come uh, we skip chapters three and uh We then just pick up one prophetic parts um which Is in the end of chapter five um so Let me show the notes. So, uh, you know, I'm skipping the The the events That were taking the took place, you know chapter uh, three four five and the Jumping into the prophetic portion of chapter five Just to give us a context here So by the time we come to chapter five um The kings in the Babylonian empire have coming up on So we were there in chapter two when there was nebuchadnezzar Uh, then his son came on And there were others who reigned and we now come to belches are who's the grandson of nebuchadnezzar so that's in chapter five so transitions have happened short and brief periods belches are who's a grandson of nebuchadnezzar is now in charge of the Babylonian empire Daniel is still there And we now pick up things in daniel chapter five versus 24 till verse 30 and daniel five 24 to 30 so we're going to Read that the passage daniel five are 24 to 30 It's another prophetic portion that we will read and uh, let's do the same thing. Let's uh Take Two verses each Different ones can read it Then we will look at what the prophetic is here verse 24 Then the fingers of the hand were sent from him and this writing was written And this is the inscription that was written many many tekel uparsin This is the interpretation of each word many god has numbered your kingdom and finished it Tekel you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting Paris your kingdom has been divided and given to medis and persians Some record Verse 29 Then balances are gave The command and the globe daniel with purple and put the chain of gold around his neck and made a proclamation Concerning him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom That very night balances are king of the challenge was slain and there is the man he received the kingdom being about 62 years old Okay, thank you so very interesting prophetic portion So just the background some was familiar belch is I was having a big, you know celebration big party And in his you know all of his important people at this court And he was actually using the vessels that they had brought out of the temple In jerusalem, and so it was all of this was going on And while this was A strange hand comes There's a hand that comes and writes certain words we're going to become We have this inscription recorded for us And everybody's seeing it the king is shocked And I say hey, okay, wise men come what is happening? Please what is this meaning? What are these letters? What are these strange things written? What does it mean? Wise men are not able to interpret it and somebody remembers daniel so king In the time of your grandfather nebuchadnezzar daniel the wise man Interpreted it. We need to ask him So they bring daniel and again, you know, this is god doing his work through daniel and daniel is prophesying He's interpreting what was written in the inscription And he's prophesying no This is just a note here that Just as god in in chapter two god was using images He used the image of This big structure Of a person with different parts metal parts and the rock and the mountain here very interestingly god is using inscription or writing or letters and Each word is meaning something So here again something for us to learn God can speak to us through images God can speak to us through words But every word is having big meaning And the interpretation is coming. So, you know, there's a message behind each word And daniel is able to present that to the king basically what he's saying is king Your kingdom, you know, you have been found wanting God has made you and, you know, you found lacking And your kingdom is going to be divided And this time he specifies the next kingdom So in chapter two, he specified Goal represents you, Babylonian He said your kingdom will be given to another kingdom, but he didn't tell us the name of that But in chapter five, he's telling The means and the versions Your kingdom is going to be given that is verse 28 Your kingdom is going to be given to the means and the versions So he specified this word, the meaning of that inscription And what is, you know, so interesting as verse 30 That very night The prophecy was fulfilled The means came and over through The calendars, the Babylonians Over through them So two things just to point out Here in chapter five, God is speaking through inscription of words So sometimes when God is speaking to us We also pay attention to words that are highlighted for us It may be just two or three words or four words or five words But there is a big message behind those words that are being Impressed or given to us In this chapter Daniel is identifying the next kingdom, the means and versions they come They will take over He did not give a timeline, but it happened immediately In this case, it has immediate fulfillment and I've just given some, you know Just that background of the historical information About what happened to whatever history people have been able to reconstruct 539 BC, the Babylonian empire fell to the meets And Therias was appointed To be in charge at that time So we've covered two portions of prophetic texts What we are going to do next week is pick up from chapter seven So at chapter six, we are not going to look at it It's an historical event which we are familiar with Chapter seven onwards is prophetic text after prophetic text every chapter And it is all adding more and more details to the outline that was given to us In chapter two and it'd be very interesting because so much from so much Is unveiled to us in in these coming chapters Daniel chapter seven on Okay, so we'll pick up chapter seven next week We hope we close today any thoughts any comments any questions so I hope everyone's following and you're all saying that Daniel can be understood. It's not very difficult step by step little by little we'll be able to unravel The prophetic text given to us in Daniel Let's close in press and we could pray with us as a class and dismiss us, please Father we want to thank you for this time of learning We pray your god as we continue to learn from This book or god we pray that you would Reveal yourself to us and help us to understand it In the in the right context and help us to understand in the right way We pray your god that This all these learnings would be beneficial But our personal walk with you and also The people whom you're ministering to we pray and ask for your grace to rest upon us god We thank you according to Jesus name we pray Hey Thank you. Thank you everyone. Amanda See you again next week by now