Well, good morning and welcome
to our continuing Bible study in the book of Daniel. I enjoyed
that hymn we just sang. You know, the book of Daniel
points to the finished work of Christ. It's the Messiah, the
Prince cut off, but not for Himself. You know, in Daniel 1, we were
introduced to the Lord Adonai, the sovereign ruler, and we looked
at all the... You know, there was a lot of
prophecies concerning the captivity that said because of the fall
and sin and the rebellion of Israel that they were going to
be captive to the Babylonians. But that's not really the main
theme of Daniel. The main theme of Daniel is Christ
and Him crucified. And as we look through, as we
go through Daniel, in today's book, chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar
has a dream, and it's about all these kingdoms that are including
his and the ones that would follow. And we find that everything is
according to God's purpose. That's what we learned in chapter
one, that God caused the Chaldeans to come in and take Jerusalem. And then we find all these succession
of kingdoms that are going to come after him, the Medo-Persians,
and then the Greeks, and then the Romans. And so each one of those has
a specific purpose in God's determinant counsel. We find the Romans,
their method of execution for heinous crimes was the crucifixion.
The Jews their method of execution was stoning. And as we look back
to Moses, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up. That must be fulfilled in
a very specific way. And so we find in this chapter
that the the Romans are going to come into power. And so everything's
working according to God's purpose and according to His will and
determinate counsel. And, you know, in each chapter
we're introduced to a new a new expression of God, as we'll
call it. In the first chapter, he was
Adonai, the sovereign ruler. Today, in this lesson, he's called
Elohim, the God of heaven. And so, each chapter we find
a new expression of Christ. And also, we'll find later on
the Messiah, the Prince. And in chapter 3, it's the One
likened to the Son of Man and all these different forms that
we have. We're brought a little bit more
information about the Gospel and about Christ in each chapter. Also, in Chapter 2, about midway
through Chapter 2, I think verse 4, the first four verses are
translated from Hebrew. And then Chapter 2, verse 4 or
5, from there on until somewhere in Chapter 7, it's translated
from Aramaic, which was the Chaldean language. And all the names of
God are Chaldean variations on the Hebrew names of God. So they're a little bit different,
but when you look them up, they all translate the references
back to the Hebrew idiom for whichever name of God is being
presented. all the names and attributes
in God in these texts are kind of a Chaldean version of them. And as we get to some things
that we ought to pay attention to in Chapter 2 is that, as I
mentioned I think in the introduction and last lesson, that the book
of Daniel is not linear. It's not a chronological step-by-step. In Chapter 1 we
had kind of a broad overview of the first three years. Remember
they were brought into captivity and the king said, fatten them
up for three years and then bring them in. Well, the three years
was up at the end of Chapter 1. And they were brought in and
none were found so wise and fair as Daniel and his three companions. And if we think back to the beginning
where we said they would have been 12 or 15 at the time of
the captivity, three years has gone by. And they would have
been eighteenish or thereabouts, and they would have been young
men. So chapter one ended kind of
vaguely with the three years of preparation of the Hebrew
use completed. And they were supposed to be
taught in all the Kaldi and tongue and customs and laws and whatnot. And in chapter one, it said,
and as for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill
and all learning and wisdom, Daniel 117. And Daniel had understanding
in all visions and dreams. Well, that's kind of a, those
dreams haven't happened yet in Chapter 1. It's just kind of
a broad overview, kind of like we mentioned in Genesis. We have
the creationist account in Chapter 1, and then Chapter 2 fills in
some details. Well, that's the same thing.
we find in Daniel here. In Daniel 1.18, Now at the end
of the days that the king had said he should bring them in,
then the prince of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar,
and the king communed with them. So they had a relationship. He
just communed with them, it says. And among them all was found
none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. They were beyond
compare with all the rest of the Hebrew children that were
brought, and even among his own wise men and counselors and magicians
and sorcerers, they call them. There was none equal to them.
And in all matters of wisdom and understanding that the king
inquired of them, so here it says that he inquired of them
some things. He found them 10 times better
than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm. So that sets the stage. Now in
Chapter 2, we're going to go back in time in this three-year
period, and we're going to look at one of these times that the
king inquired of Daniel. and his companions. So in Daniel
2, verse 1, we have this dream that Nebuchadnezzar has. But
he wakes up in the morning and he says, man, I had a dream and
it was really troubling, but I can't remember for the life
of me what it was about. But I remember somehow it stuck
in me that it was real important. Well, that was God working in
him according to His determinate counsel. He caused that dream
to happen. And he also would cause Daniel
to be able to know what that dream was and interpret it. It's
just really a fascinating story because when Daniel prays to
God for what this is all about, because his life is at risk here,
God gives him the answer in a night vision. And he is so confident
in that he says, okay, I'm ready. I can go to the king now. And
if I get it wrong, he's going to cut my head off. But he's
so confident that that never enters into the equation. So it's really an interesting
chapter here. And so he had this dream, a prophetic
dream that could have only come to him by the decree and purpose
of Almighty God. And it was a dream, again, that
he He couldn't remember, but it was serious enough for him
to cause to try to use whatever was available to him to try and
get to the bottom of it, as they say. And then we find his resources,
his human resources, the things that he had available to him
in this world, they could not produce an answer. They couldn't produce an answer
regarding a spiritual thing. Neither could they know them,
because it was spiritually discerned, is what it tells us in Corinthians.
Isn't that interesting? We're going to read here through
Daniel, and then we're going to go back and comment as we
go. In the second year of the reign
of Nebuchadnezzar, in his first year, He took Jerusalem for that final
time. He'd actually been kind of the
ruler for, I think, some years, because he was kind of co-regent
with his father, Nebuchadnezzar, his father. But the way that
the Babylonians kept track of when a king's reign started was
when he actually took complete control and the Hebrews said,
well, he was actually in charge a couple years before that. But
anyway, here we have the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.
And Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams wherewith his spirit was troubled
and his sleep break from him. And this is, it kind of gives
us the plural of dreams here. He dreamed dreams. So more than
one. But we have a record of this
one here right now. Then the king commanded to all
the magicians and the astrologers and the sorcerers and the Chaldeans
for to show the king his dreams. So they came and stood before
the king. He said, hey, you guys are magicians. You're wise. You
should be able to tell me the answer to that. then spake the Chaldeans to the
king in Syriac or Aramaic. Now there's one thing that we
might pay attention to here is that as we mentioned in chapter
1 verse 17, Daniel and his companions were accorded a place among the
magicians and sorcerers and astrologers as well as the Chaldeans. And
so the term Chaldean here is used It was a nationalistic term
for the nation of them, but it was also referred to kind of
a sect of them. Like in the Hebrews, we had the
Sadducees, and we had the Pharisees, and the Essenes, and these different
sects. But this one sect of Chaldeans,
they kind of majored in astrology and applying that. and other unlawful arts, I think
the commandeering said. And those were common in that
country, because they had all these different gods that they
worshipped, moon gods, and vegetable gods, and rain gods, and all
the various gods that they had. So keep that in mind. So Daniel
was placed in a position kind of on a level with those magicians,
sorcerers, astrologers, and Chaldeans. And so the king said unto them,
once they came into his palace and approached him, the king
said unto them, there in verse five of chapter two, or verse
four, then spake the Chaldeans to the... Three, I mean. The king said to them, I dreamed
a dream and my spirit was troubled to know the dream. And then spake
the Chaldeans to the king of Syriac, O king, live forever.
They say that, but they didn't really mean it. Nobody lived
forever, so they knew that. Live forever. Tell thy servants
the dream, and we'll show you the interpretation. Oh, yeah,
if you give us a kind of a clue, it's kind of like dial astrology
1-800-something-something, and they say, well, tell us a little
bit about yourself. They would give them the answer,
and the king answered to these Kaldians. He says, the thing
is gone from me. You ever had a dream like that?
You had a dream in the night, and then you wake up and say,
man, I had a dream, but now it's gone. 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 into a hill." That's a pretty serious, and him being
the sovereign ruler of the Chaldeans and Babylon, that was going to
occur. There would not be any relief
from that. But, if you show the dream and
the interpretation of it, you shall receive of me gifts and
rewards and great honor. Therefore, show me the dream
and the interpretation thereof." They answered again and said,
let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show you
the interpretation of it. The king answered and said, I
know of a certainty that you would gain the time. What he's
saying here is you're stalling. put up or shut up, you're stalling.
Because you see, the thing is gone from me. But if you will
not make known unto 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." And they were hoping that time
would pass and the news cycle would change and something else
would come up to distract him. And they said, if we just put
him off long enough, he'll forget about it. Therefore, tell me
the dream, and I shall know that you can show me the interpretation
thereof. And the Chaldeans answered before
the king and said, There's not a man on the earth that can show
the king's matter. Therefore, there's no king, lord,
or ruler that has such things as any magician, astrologer,
or Chaldean. and it's a rare thing that the
king requires, and there is none other that can show up before
the king except the gods, the little g gods, whose dwelling
is not with flesh. For this cause the king was very
angry and very furious, and so he commanded to destroy all the
wise men of Babylon. And remember Daniel in chapter
1, we learn in verse 17 that Daniel and his Companions were
kind of lumped in that they were all painted with that same brush
So this this kind of applied to them So the decree went forth that
the wise men should be slain and They sought Daniel and his
fellows to be slain and apparently This is kind of we're reading
between the lines here But when the king sent for the wise men,
the astrologers, the magicians, and the Chaldeans to interpret
the stream, they said, let's not tell Daniel about it. Let's
just go ourselves, because we'll look like the smart ones, and
we won't let that nasty Hebrew guy that's wiser than all of
us be involved. then it doesn't work out well
for them. So the king's captain goes out to round all these guys
up and kill them. And they sought Daniel and his
fellows to be slain. And then 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? He says, what's all the hubbub,
bub? Why are you going to kill all of us? And so Ariok made
the thing known to Daniel. So he, we can imply from that
that he didn't know anything about it. And it was kind of
taken by surprise. Then Daniel went in and desired
of the king. So he had this ability. Remember, Daniel was well favored
to the king, and the king kind of liked him. So he was able
to go into the king and say, what's up with this? And he desired
of the king that he would give him time and that he would show
the king the interpretation. And so Daniel He was well favored, it told
us in chapter one, by the king. So then Daniel went to his house
and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah as companions. So this is their Hebrew names
here in chapter two, at the beginning of chapter two. So he says, we're
going to be killed if we don't come up with this dream and the
interpretation. And they said, we're It's just a basic principle of
grace that you can't just come up with this stuff on your own.
He said, there's only one place we can go, and that's to the God of heaven. And they would desire the mercies
of the God of heaven concerning this secret. that Daniel and
his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men
from Babylon." So it's interesting the verbiage and what they say
here. There's the risk of death here.
There's the certainty of death here. And what do they want?
They want the mercy of the God of heaven. that they not perish. Then was
the secret revealed to Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel
blessed the God of heaven." The same word again we find here,
the Elohim. In the Aramaic, it turns out
that's Allah, like the Muslims would use the base word of it. The one that's ascended. That's
what that, in the Aramaic, that's what that word means. And Daniel answered and said,
Bless me the name of God forever, for wisdom and might are his.
And he changes the times and the seasons. He removeth kings
and setteth up kings, and 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." Boy, what a description Daniel had for a young man regarding
that. That only came to him by revelation.
That did not come from learning. And we know that he spent some
time in whatever roles that they had, because later on we learned
that he says, I learned by the books that captivity time is
about up at 70 years. So he had access to some scripture
there. And even when he was a young
man, he probably spent some time and some exposure to that. He says, I thank Thee and praise
Thee, O God of my fathers, who has given me wisdom. He already
knew some things. He said, He's given me wisdom
and might and has made known unto me now what we desired of
Thee, for Thou has made known unto us the King's manner. It's
revelation, just like grace. Therefore Daniel went in to Ariok,
whom the king had ordered to destroy the wise men of Babylon.
And he went and said unto him, Destroy not the wise men of Babylon. Bring me in there before the
king, and I will show the king the interpretation." Now this
next part is interesting because Ariok goes in to the king and
says, I, capital I. Isn't that what we find in religion
about I've done this, I've done that.
He said, I have found somebody that can solve your problem. I'm the one that should get the
accolades because I have delivered And Ariok brought in Daniel before
the king in haste and said thus unto him, I have found a man
of the captives of Judah that will make known unto the king
the interpretation. And the king answered and said
to Daniel whose name, and here we go into the Aramaic terms,
his name was, remember it was changed to Belteshazzar from
Daniel, servant of some, Babylonian God, art thou able to make known
unto me the dream which I have seen and the interpretation thereof?" I just love that, you know, when
we, this part is so crucial here, because It just brings to mind
that when God reveals grace to you, you can't unknow it. And
you're supremely confident in it because you know that it all
depends on Him and He is taken care of. He's the author and
finisher of your faith. He's the Alpha and Omega, the
captain of our salvation. All these things that you can't
unknow once you've experienced grace in a new birth. Daniel goes into the King with
that same confidence. Daniel answered in the presence
of the king and said, the secret which the king hath demanded
cannot the wise men and the astrologers and the magicians and the soothsayers
show unto the king. This can't be revealed by man.
That's what Jesus said. Flesh and blood have not revealed
this unto you, but my father, which is in heaven. But there
is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets. He reveals grace. He reveals His Son, turns out,
as we find out in the Scriptures. And make known unto the king
Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream
and the visions of thy head upon thy bed are these. And boy, people
start from right there, the latter days thing, and then they go
off into all this eschatological stuff and then they try to use
all the formulas and calculations here to determine when the end
times are going to be. So if you follow that out to
its logical conclusion, it makes no sense. What then? What's the consequence of that?
What's the logical sequence of events if you did know that?
What are you going to do? Okay, I don't need to get saved
until like the last second. Or, I have until this day to
do the regular things that I want to do, and then at the end, I'll
reform and repent. Whatever their thinking is, it
makes no sense, and it just denies the things that Daniel really,
truly reveals here. So he says, here's your dream
and the interpretation. As for thee, O king, thy thoughts
came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter. And he that revealeth secrets
makes known unto thee what shall come to pass. But as for me,
This secret was not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have
more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known
the interpretation to the king and that thou mightest know the
thoughts of thy heart." He says, this is not to glorify myself. Isn't that what the scripture
said? When did we do that? When did we do that? This just
comes from grace. This just comes from God. I didn't
have anything to do with it. I didn't study up on it. Or anything, God just revealed
it to me. He said, O King, verse 31 of Daniel, chapter 2, Thou
sawest, and behold, a great image. This great image, whose brightness
was excellent, stood before thee, and the form thereof was terrible.
And the image's head was of fine gold, the breast and his arms
of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of
iron, and his feet part of iron and part of clay. And thou saw'st
till that a stone, and here's some more gospel coming at you
right here, a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the
image on his feet that were of iron and clay and break them
to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay,
the brass, the silver, 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,
and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain
and filled the whole earth. The stone that the builders rejected
has become the head of the corner. And Jesus said, Whomever will
fall on this stone will be broken, but whoever this stone falls
on them, they'll be ground to powder. That's from Luke chapter
20. And he says, well, this is the
dream. And we'll tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou,
king, art a great king of kings, for the God of heaven hath given
thee a kingdom, power and strength and glory. He attributes it all
to God there. And there, wheresoever the children
of man dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven,
hath he given into thine hand and made thee ruler over them
all. Thou art this head of gold. and after thee shall rise another
kingdom inferior to thee and another third kingdom of brass
which shall bear rule over all the earth and the fourth kingdom
shall be strong as iron for as much as iron breaketh in pieces
and subdueth all things as iron breaketh all these shall it break
in pieces and bruise and whereas thou saw 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 iron for as much
as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay and the toes of
the feet were part iron and part of clay so the kingdom shall
be partly strong and partly broken And whereas I saw the iron mixed
with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men,
but they shall not cleave to one another, even as iron is
not mixed with clay. I like the NIV translation of
that. Let me turn to there and... in Daniel 2.43, just as you saw
the iron mix with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture
and will not remain united any more than iron mixes with clay.
So it's just talking about in the, as
that particular part has reference to the Roman Empire was, It was
comprised of nations and people from all over. And they set up
Roman kind of supervisors in each one of them, but a lot of
them, they all had their own kings and rulers. As long as
they paid tribute and revenue to Rome and didn't break any
Roman laws or cause a problem, they were pretty much left to
their own devices for religion and local affairs. They were
a province of Rome there, but they wouldn't stick together,
because they were all just slaves under the Roman Empire, and they
didn't really have anything in common, other than that one attribute. In the days, in verse 44, and
in the days of these kings, and all those kings have came
and went, so we know that during this time, this next thing happens. 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 in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall
stand forever. For as much as thou saw that
the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that
it break in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver,
the gold, the great God hath made known unto the king what
shall come to pass hereafter. And the dream is certain, and
the interpretation thereof sure. He was absolutely confident in
this. And he saw it. It was revealed
to him. And he couldn't unknow it. He
couldn't be dissuaded of it. Just like grace. Then the king,
Nebuchadnezzar, fell on his face and worshipped Daniel. Not worshipped
in the sense that we would worship God, but he paid him honor. had an honorific placed on him
and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odors
to him. And the king answered unto Daniel
and said, of a truth, that your God is a capital G God of little
g gods. So in his mind, the Hebrew God
was just another one of the many gods that he thought existed.
But he said, this one seems to have a little more potency than
some of these other ones. Your God is a God of gods, and
a capital L, Lord of little K Kings, and a revealer of secrets, saying
that thou could reveal this secret." Boy, when the king, when Daniel
told him that dream, he says, that was it. That was the dream
that I had. It was because God had caused
that to happen. a revealer of secrets, saying
that thou could reveal the secret. Then the king," now here's an
important part here that says, he made Daniel a great man. and offered him many gifts, and
made him ruler over all the whole province of Babylon, and the
chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon. Then
Daniel requested of the king, and he sent Shadrach," remember,
before we had their Hebrew names, now we have the Syriac, Aramaic
names, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, over the affairs of
the province of Babylon. But Daniel sat in the gate of
the king. So Daniel was made a pretty important
fellow, which the soothsayers and magicians, astrologers, and
the locals didn't think that was that wonderful. It's kind
of just a parallel to the book of Esther. Almost same scenario,
only Esther takes place in the Babylonian province of Elam,
in the city capital of Shushan which is just a little southeast
of it's on that map that I gave you here previously. So we have time for a few comments
here on this that we've just written and or read rather and The thing that we really want
to focus on is the, in this image that he had, the head of, he
says, you are this head of gold because God has given you a kingdom
and power and might over all the area of the world that he's
given you control and power over. He says, after you will come
an inferior, nation. That would be the Medo-Persians
that were going to be introduced here in Chapter 3. Darius the
Mede and Cyrus the Persian. Then after that comes the brass,
which is fulfilled by Alexander the Great, which conquered all
of that area. And then after him comes the
Romans. So we have the four elements
of the image covered in these four kingdoms. And the interesting
thing comes up at the beginning of chapter 3. And Nebuchadnezzar
says, oh, I have a head of gold. And then he says, hmm, but we can't have all these other
nations take over. So he makes a statue and he says,
let's make it all of gold. He says, I won't make a statue
that represents the image because the image says that I'm going
to be cut off, and somebody else is going to take over. And then
they're going to be cut off, and somebody else is going to take
over. And then they're going to be cut off, and somebody else
is going to take over. And then the whole thing's going
to be obliterated by the stone cut without hands, which is none
other than the stone which the builders rejected, the Christ,
the Messiah. Messiah the Prince. So he says,
I know, let's build a statue that's all of gold, since the
gold head represents me, we'll just morph that on down into
the rest of me, of the image. And then that'll do away with
with the part I don't like. Isn't that how religious does
religious stuff? Isn't that amazing that, oh yeah,
I don't like this part of God. I know that it says God in the
Bible, but from there on down, I don't like any of it. So I'll
just change it. according to my belief of how
things should go. So just a good metaphor there
for a natural man and how he does things. We'll just change,
we'll just fix that. So we have this introduction
to the Messiah, the stone cut without hands. So as we get to verse 44 there, and in these
days shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom. And we kind
of mentioned that briefly earlier that each one of these kingdoms
had a purpose. Greek turns out to be the most
precise language in almost the entire universe of the world
spoke Greek. What a perfect language and so
precise for the spread of the gospel. Nobody spoke universal
Hebrew, but practically everybody knew a little Greek. And they
had that Koine Greek, which was your common Greek that they spoke. So what better language could
there be to spread the gospel through than the Greek language,
which Alexander had from Africa all the way over to India and
all the way north. He conquered much of the known
world by the time he was, what, 25? So Greek culture was everywhere. And then we have the Romans being
made to come into play. And so in verse 44, In the days
of these kings shall God of heaven set up a kingdom which will never
be destroyed." In Acts 4, verse 24, and normally it will probably
be in Acts 4, turn of the century. And when they heard that, they
lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord,
thou art God, which has made heaven and earth and the sea
and all that is in them. Isn't that what Daniel just pretty
much said that word for word in his account? Who by the mouth of thy servant
David, I said, why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain
things like making a whole statue out of gold instead of the head?
The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered
together against the Lord and against His Christ. For of a
truth against this holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed,
both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people
of Israel, were gathered together." So we've got the Greeks and the
Romans, the Jews, all the Gentiles gathered together. to do whatsoever
thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. So if we look
at my little stickman chart there, and you can see about when this
occurred, Daniel would have been about 18. You don't have to do
that, but I would just say in a long time. before Messiah the
Prince is cut off on that chart. You'll see that over there in
30 AD. And we're back in the 500 BC
category here on our time chart. All this had been predetermined
according to God's purpose to do whatsoever thy hand and counsel
determined before to be done. that Messiah the Prince should
come, that Messiah the Prince should be cut off, that Messiah
the Prince should be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, that Messiah the Prince would take on himself
the sins of all his people of all time, pay the penalty in
their place on the cross, the stone cut without hands, And all these other kingdoms
would be brought to naught. And nobody likes that. I'm sure
those Hebrew people said, well, our nation is never going to
come to naught. Then one day, they were surrounded by the Assyrians,
and then another time, they were surrounded by the Babylonians.
Then still later on in the Book of Daniel, Chapter 9, he says,
later on, you're going to be surrounded by the Romans, and
it's going to be awful beyond belief. I think they said in
Daniel they were besieged 30 months before they surrendered
and got taken off captive. So 30 months, that's pretty near
three years. That's a long time to go without
being closed up in a small place. The stone cut without hands.
Isaiah 8.13, and Norm mentioned this, Peter quotes this in his
Gospels. Isaiah 8.13, sanctify the Lord
of hosts himself and let him be your fear and him be your
dread and he shall be first sanctuary. but for a stone of stumbling
and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel and a djinn
and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem." It's a dichotomy.
There's always two results to the gospel. There's always two
results to the gospel being presented. the unbelievers, and it'll be
a sanctuary or it's going to be a snare. And many among them
shall stumble and fall and be broken and be snared and be taken.
Then he says, bind up the testimony and seal the law among my disciples. That's Isaiah 8, 16. So the epilogue
is Daniel, who would have been about 18 or 20, The king said, of a truth, your
God is a God. But he didn't quite have a belief
that you get when you're born again yet. And he made Daniel
a great man. But the message here was one
of the Messiah. The message was of Christ. But
he didn't get that. He just saw, oh, a king is going
to be taken away from me if I don't do something. So there you have
it. So that'll be the end of our
lesson for today. So be free because of the stone
cut without hands. A side note there is if you go
back to Exodus chapter 20, when God commanded them to make the
altar, what did he say? He says, if you will make me
an altar of stone and you will not build it of hewn stone, it
will not come from the work of men. If you lift up thy tool upon
it, you've polluted it. works and grace are not compatible. So thank you and be free again.