 Okay, so welcome back to the second lecture hour to BC308 Revelation Daniel. We are just doing an introduction to the book of Daniel, just a little bit more that we need to cover as a way of introduction. Let me share the PDF, okay, all right. So we were just, we were talking about the theology that we see or we find in the book of Daniel, and we just, we mentioned about how the book of Daniel brings out the fact that Jehovah, Jehovah God is the Most High God, He is sovereign over the rulers of the earth that comes out very clearly in the book of Daniel. We also mentioned other things that we find in the book of Daniel, Daniel revealing to us the ancient of days, the title Son of Man coming out, the Messiah pointing specific to the Messiah and the Messiah being cut off or being dying is pointed out there in the book of Daniel. And then we also mentioned about angels and angelic encounters that the book of Daniel brings out very clearly for us that there is the spiritual realm and there are angels at work in the spiritual realm. And of course this is in Daniel chapter 10 and also along with that we get a little insight into the fact that there are evil angelic beings because Daniel chapter 10 is one of those chapters in the Bible that speak about the conflict between good angels and bad angels or angels that are opposed to God and so that also comes out in the book of Daniel. So that's most of the introduction now very quickly from a historical perspective and we will refer to some of this, some of these things as we go along in the book of Daniel but it's good to know the history because we said as we said earlier there is a lot of prophecy that is fulfilled in history that we find that Daniel spoke about so it's good to know, sorry it's good to know these things. So historically there was the Assyrian Empire or the Assyrian Kingdom if you wanted, if you could call it that, between 884 to 612 BC for about a period of 200 years then we pick up on the Babylonian Empire which Daniel was there, then comes the Medo-Persians so usually they club, it's clubbed together Medes and the Persians because the Medes were in power for a very short time and then the Persians took over. So this is usually referred to as the Medo-Persian Empire then come the Grecian Empire or the Greeks and part of that is the the the most famous leader of the Greek Empire or the Macedonian Empire is Alexander the Great and he you know in his conquests he came all the way to the north, northwestern side of India so Alexander the Great and we will find him also referenced in prophecy here in Daniel's prophecy and then the fact that he he had a very short life he was died early and his kingdom the Greek Empire was then divided into four pieces of four sections. Subsequently came the Roman Empire which continued for a long time almost a thousand year period and the Roman Empire until about 1453. So just a little background because we will see some of these things coming out in the book of Daniel. From a way of timeline you know and this is just information it's not something you need to memorize or know but just generally okay around 727, 722 BC the Assyrians came in and conquered the northern kingdom and later on they conquered Judah. After that came Nebuchadnezzar who came in and he conquered Judah and so you read about so the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah warning the people about some of these things then comes we read about Cyrus the Persian who over through the Babylonians and he issued the decree to go and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem they read about that in Ezra. Zerubabel rebuilds the temple and Emma rebuilds the wall then comes 333 BC Alexander the Great and after him after the Greek Empire there is the Seleucid Empire that comes in and there is I mean there are a lot of leaders there a lot of kings there but one of the most notorious or well known I mean not for good reasons but one of the most notorious kings as part of the Seleucid Empire is Antiochus Epiferous. We will mention this later when we come to chapter 11 because Daniel speaks of these leaders right so we will just to give you a background and you know these names you will hear again when we come to chapter 11 and he comes and he does certain things which Daniel spoke of and so yeah so from a historical perspective just to keep this information in mind people you know as we read through Daniel we will be mentioning some of these things and then this just gives you a background that yeah okay these are historical events and we are seeing them being foretold in Daniel's prophecies okay and we will mention these things again as we get in right so that kind of gives us a little background to the book of Daniel any questions right so what I want to do is you know I'm going to very quickly mention in passing a little bit about the historical side which is about Daniel and some of the events which we are already familiar with so we are not going to be focusing on that so I'll just mention it for the sake of completion but we will pick up directly from chapter two the prophecies okay so from a historical side you know the life of Daniel and his friends stands out in the book of Daniel and we know the stories chapter one we know the stand they take to to especially from a from following the Jewish diet that okay these are things you eat these are things you don't eat and so they stood by that and God honored them and you know they did very well in in in the and the learning and the education that they were put through chapter one so we are all familiar with it chapter two we see how you know King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream and Daniel and his friends they pray together and God gives them the understanding of the revelation of the dream and the understanding of the dream chapter three we see I'm just reviewing the historical part of it so that you know we won't be touching on it again but these are stories we are familiar with chapter three we see how they are all forced to worship the golden image but they don't bow their knee to the golden image they refuse to do it and they are thrown into the fiery furnace but they say you know hey if God's going to deliver us he will deliver us if he doesn't doesn't matter we're not going to bow our knee that's their dedication which which really speaks to us really stands strong that we shouldn't bow our knee to anything and so here they are they're refused to bow but God amazingly delivers them and Nebuchadnezzar acknowledges there's you know there's no god like the god of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego now very interesting this is just a passing comment that the names of these Hebrew boys these four Hebrew boys were given Babylonian names which were actually names that in some way dedicated them to the Babylonian gods so you know and obviously this is done because they were now trying to be assimilated into the Babylonian system and so they were given these names and so on but anyway so chapter three we see the powerful testimony of these young men and then chapter four is Nebuchadnezzar's you know experience of how he loses his mind and then he regains his mind and he recognizes that you know ultimately God is in charge chapter six is Daniel's stand of his devotion to God that even when he's you know he goes and prays even when there's a decree by Darius that you shouldn't pray to anyone else Daniel prays he's thrown at the dinner blinds and God delivers him and again that becomes a powerful testimony to the most high god to the whole god right so these are stories that we are all familiar with in the book of Daniel so I'm not going to focus on these these stories these actual historical events which are a powerful testimony to God and a testimony to the lives of these Jewish people young men who stood up for the name of the Lord okay so that's all we're going to do as far as you know looking at his history and the lives of these people what you're going to do now is start looking at the prophetic text right the first prophetic text in the book of Daniel starts off in chapter two itself so again we know the little background of the story Nebuchadnezzar wakes up one morning the Babylonian king and he says hey I had a dream but I don't remember the dream but I want all of you who are in my court so he calls all his wise men and he says look I want you to tell me what my dream was and I want you to tell me the meaning of the dream and of course they try to negotiate the same king you know if you tell us the dream at least we can tell you the meaning but you know for us to go and tell you what your dream was that's not possible it's we can't do it of course he gets angry and he says you know I'm giving you only so much time if you don't do it all of you are going to be dead and that's when Daniel comes and he tells the king's officer say I will come back with what the king wants just give me time so that night he goes and he prays with his friends they pray and that God reveals the dream and the meaning to Daniel right so Daniel goes back to Nebuchadnezzar and he tells him the dream and he tells him the meaning okay so let's so we're going to pick up with that dream itself because that's prophetic text right so let's go to Daniel chapter 2 we're going to read verses 28 to 49 I'm honest to read that entire section of scripture we'll just read maybe three verses each and then we're going to look into what is the meaning okay but Daniel chapter 2 verses 28 to 49 can somebody read that for us please I mean we'll read three verses each Daniel 2 28 but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries they're shown king Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come the dream and the visions and pass through your mind as you lay on your bed are days as you were laying there okay your mind turned to things to come and the revealer of mysteries showed you that is going to happen okay somebody from verse 30 onwards it take turns to read right so somebody Neelam Aran Kanan just go verse 30 yeah but as for me this secret has not been revealed to me because I have more wisdom than anyone living but for our sake who makes known the interpretation to the king and that you may know the thoughts of your heart you okay were watching and behold a great image this great image whose splendor was excellent stood before you and it from was was some this image images has was a head was of fine gold it chased and us of silver it's a bill and there is a bronze it's lace of iron it's sweet partly of iron and partly of clay 34 as you watch a rock was cut from the mountain but combination of iron and as you watch a rock was cut from a mountain but not by human hands it struck the feet of iron and clay is massing them to bits the whole statue was crushed into small pieces of iron clay bronze silver and gold then the wind blow them away without the trace like job on a tracing floor but the rock that locked the statue down big became a great mountain that covered the whole earth can whilst Thomas and Dave go ahead this is the dream and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king thou oh king are the king of kings for the god of heaven have given thee a kingdom power and strength and glory and whosoever the children of man the the beasts of the field and the flaws of the heaven has been given into thine hand and has made the ruler over all them all thou art that head of gold after you after you there will be another empire not as great as yours and after that attack an empire of bones which will rule the whole earth and then there will be a fourth a fourth empire as strong as iron which shatters and breaks everything and just as iron shatters everything it will shatter and crush all the early empire you also saw that the feet and the doors were partly clay and partly iron this means that it will be divided empire it will have something of the strength of iron because here was iron mixed with the clay was 42 and as the dry as a tool of the feet where partially of iron and partially of clay so kingdom shall be partly strong and partly project so you saw iron mixed with the ceramic clay they will mingle with the seed of man but will not adhere to the one another just as iron does not mix with the clay and if the days of these kings of god of heaven will set up a kingdom it shall never be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to other people it shall break the pieces and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever insomuch as you saw that the same the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it broke it pieces the iron the bronze the clay the silver and the gold the great god is made known to the king what will come to pass after this the dream is certain and it is in interpretation is sure okay where's 46 oh somebody can just read here 46 to 49 somebody could read it yeah go ahead then king nebgat nesar fell on his face prostrate before daniel and commanded that they should present an offering and incense to him the king answered daniel and said truly your god is the god of go gods the lord of kings and the revealer of secrets since you could reveal this secret then the king promoted daniel and gave him many great gifts and he made him ruler over the whole province of babelon and chief administrator over all the wise men of babelon also daniel petitioned the king and he said shadrach meshek and abedin over the affairs of the province of babelon but daniel said in the gate of the king okay thank you thank you everyone all right so this dream really forms the outline of a lot of other visions and dreams that the visions we're going to see or prophecies we're going to see in the book of daniel right so it's like this is an outline and then when we get into chapter five and chapter seven these things are then the details of these things are given to us okay so so daniel gets the secret the dream what nebgat nesar had right now what i want to just point out is god gave the dream to nebgat nesar nebgat nesar was not you know a man of god he was not a prophet of god he was not any great spiritual person in the sense of you know a worshipper of the living god but he was the king he was the ruler he was not a believer in the living god but still god gave to give him this dream so you know god speaks and he can also speak to the unsaved or to the to the to someone who doesn't know him personally right and we see that many times even in the case of potterford in the time of joseph he didn't believe in Yahweh god but god gave him a dream about what was going to come happen so that's what we see god do here again he's giving nebgat nesar a Babylonian king a dream and the dream is he sees an image and this image has different uh different parts of the image are made of different metals so he sees the head part that's of gold so i'm just i'm just kind of summarizing what we read here verse 32 head is of gold then the chest and the arms of silver then he has the belly and the thighs of bronze then he has legs of iron and then the feet is a mixture of iron and clay right so that's what he saw in the dream and now daniel has the interpretation of it and like we said in the very beginning in many of the passages the prophetic text in the book of daniel the interpretation is already there and as we go through the book of daniel we will you know it adds to this adds to what we read in chapter two so what we read in chapter two will become clearer but for now let us try to understand what this means right so one more part of what the king saw was he saw this image so he saw this big image like a standing man gold silver uh bronze iron and feet of iron and clay saw this and then he saw verse 34 a huge rock a huge stone which was not made with human hands like you know it wasn't like cut out of a mountain with human hands no but this huge thing came and struck this image and crushed everything and this rock or this stone verse 35 it became a big mountain and filled the whole earth so that was a dream uh never goodness or so okay so now what does this mean what's the interpretation so the interpretation and the meaning is given to us right here so let's you know and that starts off from verse 38 so in summary what is god speaking about he's talking about kingdoms and he's revealing the sequence of kingdoms that are going to come so verse 38 then it says king nebuchadnezzar you are that head of gold that means that head the head part of gold represents you the Babylonian king verse 39 but after you there's going to be another kingdom that's the chest and arms of silver then he says after you there'll be a third kingdom that's verse 39 another kingdom which is the bronze the belly and the thighs and then there's going to be a fourth kingdom verse 40 and it's of iron and it's going to be very strong it's going to crush all the previous kingdoms meaning it's going to be a very very strong kingdom verse 41 and then later on he says but this kingdom is going to be divided the feet and the toes and it's going to become a mixture of iron and clay so it's almost like this kingdom iron that kingdom is going to be fragmented it's going to be divided so many parts and it's going to become a mixture of iron and clay there's gonna be it's going to be partly strong partly weak and but it won't mix together it won't be held together because it's just like iron and clay don't mix this kingdom is going to be very loosely held it's not going to be very strong but it's going to have something of the iron kingdom i mean the roman i mean i shouldn't say the roman now he'll say it later but it's going to have something of the iron in it right in this very loosely held kingdom it's going to have something of the iron in it and verse 44 and in the days of these kings so that means there are going to be many leaders many kings when in this fifth era so that means the fourth was the feet of iron then comes a fifth but this fifth is a very loosely held kind of kingdom distribution it's not going to be held together it's a mix of iron and clay that that means it comes out of that iron kingdom but it's fragmented it's loosely held it has some part of the iron kingdom it has many many kings verse 44 so this fifth kingdom really is a conglomeration it's a loosely held you know unity of some many kings so when you see this fifth kingdom in the days of these kings verse 44 what'll happen the god of heaven will set up his kingdom so he says this rock that came and struck and crushed everything else it actually represents the kingdom of god god's own kingdom and that kingdom will be established on the earth it will destroy all the previous kingdom meaning it'll supersede surpass overpower it will basically annihilate meaning take out of memory all of this and the kingdom of god will be established and god himself will set up his kingdom on the earth okay so what can we take away from here this dream about the image and the rock and all of that is starting with nebuchadnezzar very clear he already said you are the head of god and he then talks about a sequence of kingdoms starting with nebuchadnezzar and then four others or three others three others and then the fifth one is a loosely held collection of small kingdoms with many kings right so he's talking about a series of empires or kingdoms and then he talks about a fifth set of kings in whose time god will set up his kingdom so very interesting like we said in the introduction he's going from the time of nebuchadnezzar all the way to the time of the kingdom of god being set up on the earth he's just giving a sequence now he's not mentioning the names of these kingdoms he doesn't mention here but when we go into subsequent chapters he starts telling us this is who those kingdoms are which what will be the next kingdom the second what will be the third what will be the fourth he tells us and what's going to happen okay but keep in mind that chapter two is like a outline that is further developed and expanded as we move through the book of daniel the other thing i want to highlight here is the imagery that's used that means parts of the human body are being used to represent kingdoms the head the the the chest and arms the belly and thighs the feet and the toe the feet and the toes they each of these parts are actually representing kingdoms empires if you want to know whatever you want to use so that's something to keep in mind that sometimes god can use those kinds of images but here the meaning is assigned meaning he's interpreting it for us he's saying okay this is what you know all of this represents represents kingdoms but one thing we we can also take as part of the imagery is the mountain this is verse 35 the stone that struck the image became a great mountain so a mountain the image of a mountain represents a kingdom it represents god's kingdom so keep that in mind because sometimes even in dreams or when god is speaking prophetically and you see a mountain and i'm saying all the time but one of the meanings of a mountain is kingdom it represents kingdoms or a kingdom and in this case the mountain is representing the kingdom of god this is god's kingdom which will cover the whole earth okay so i think i will we will stop here for today but this chapter 2 the dream here forms an outline that is developed further as we go through the book of daniel and keep this in mind that the book of daniel chapter 2 begins with this a dream that is actually giving a sequence of kingdoms that are to come starting with nebuchadnezzar he talks about totally five kingdoms nebuchadnezzar another kingdom a third kingdom of bronze a fourth kingdom of iron and then a fifth kingdom which is a loosely held collection of many kings and it is in the time of this this loosely held this fifth kingdom that god is going to set up his kingdom so that becomes a lot of interest to us hey what is that loosely held collection what would that mean or what could it mean for us because it is in the time of that collection of kings that god is going to set up his kingdom we will come back to chapter 2 as we read other chapters because now we can in the other chapters will help us tell us what these kingdoms were but what i want to close with is in the book of daniel this fifth kingdom this mixture of iron and clay the feet which is a mixture of iron and clay loosely held with kings 10 kings is not specified for us so that is where there is a lot of people try to say what is that fifth kingdom the clue that we have given to us in chapter 2 is this fifth kingdom is essentially part of the previous feet of iron because this fifth kingdom here which is a mixture of iron and clay has something of the iron in it so we will recognize little later on when we go or the fifth king the fourth kingdom the preceding one which is the feet of iron we know what that is and because we know what that is i will mention it to you you know at the right time i think in the next class when we identify these kingdoms because we know what it is we most likely can say what the fifth kingdom is because it's a mixture of iron and clay it's an intermingling of the original feet of iron with it says here in verse 43 with other people so it's a mixture it's a mixing up of people who belonged to the fourth kingdom the feet of iron plus clay mixture of all the other people and among them were 10 kings the toes as we will see later on they represent kings so kingdoms and kings is what he's talking about but he doesn't specify what that fifth kingdom is so that is where we have to you know try and understand but this fifth kingdom is of great interest to us because he said during the times of these kings god will come set up his kingdom so that's why what this fifth kingdom is is something you know those who study bible prophecy are trying to understand and try to interpret because then that gives us some clue of you know maybe we are pretty close or what is happening okay we will pause here I just want you to think about these things when we continue next week we'll pick it up pick up in chapter five the next section we're going to look at is from chapter five where our belches are see some handwriting on the wall and he calls Daniel to interpret it okay so we will start with chapter five but remember all these things that we're going to read build up on chapter two okay so it's chapter two clear uh so far any questions any doubts it's okay so far right uh we will build up on this you know as we go into chapter five and very interesting you know keep chapter two in mind because when we get into chapter five and then when we get into chapter seven he begins to specify the names of those kingdoms and it's right there in the scripture text so it's very interesting actually that he'll tell you this is the kingdom this is the kingdom and then gets into more and more details okay so it it really becomes more and more interesting we're going to pause here and we will pray and then go for a break and I will meet you shortly after the break in our next class okay could somebody please pray and then we will dismiss so we'll pray go ahead thanking you for the class for the court thanking you for the subject for the court there is the revelation for the court to your kingdom and the upcoming time for the court thanking you for the court the everything for the court help us to understand for the court the the subject for the court the little book and revelation book for the court they will give you wisdom and knowledge for the court that we can understand the nicely way for the court thank you for the court thank you upcoming time just meeting to you and for the court just take care of every side thank you for that almighty teacher's name we pray amen amen thank you everyone um take a quick break I'll see you at 11 o'clock in the other class god bless you so