Participants: Ty Gibson & James Rafferty
Series Code: DBOTB
Program Code: DBOTB00002A
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00:01 Hello friends, we want to share
00:03 with you a special message 00:05 before we dive into this 00:06 Books of the Books on the 00:08 book of Daniel. 00:09 We're going to be taking it Chapter by chapter and 00:11 verse by verse, but we want to encourage you, a lot of what 00:14 we are going to be studying, a lot of what we will understand 00:17 in Bible prophecy as well as in Christian experience in 00:21 relationship with God. 00:22 It is going to be very real and very compliable to your life 00:24 and to the time in which we live. 00:27 We are seeing events transpire that had been predicted in the 00:30 book up Daniel. 00:31 Entering into experiences, into trials that are also duplicates 00:35 of what we see in the book of Daniel. 00:37 We want to encourage you to view and encourage others 00:41 friends, neighbors, to view these programs because we 00:44 believe Jesus Christ is coming very soon and we want you 00:47 your friends, your family, your community be ready 00:51 for that event. 00:52 So please join us as we view the book of Daniel 00:55 on Books of the Book. 01:17 Hello friends, welcome to Books of the Book. 01:19 We are going to be studying the book of Daniel. 01:21 My name is James Rafferty, and I'm James' co-host, Ty Gibson. 01:25 We are happy that you have joined us for the study of 01:27 the book of Daniel. 01:28 It is an incredible book that seems to meet James, 01:30 to run in two basic tracks. 01:33 On the one and in the book of Daniel you have a story 01:36 line of Daniels life, a captive in Babylon in a foreign country. 01:41 His story unfolds through the book of Daniel. 01:44 He tells exactly what he is experiencing as a captive 01:48 in Babylon and then the second track that runs through the book 01:52 of Daniel are the prophecies. 01:54 The visions that are received one by Nebuchadnezzar, 01:56 a second by Nebuchadnezzar, and then Daniel receives visions 02:00 and those visions are brought forth throughout the book 02:04 of Daniel as well. 02:05 So we have storyline, and then we have prophecies that are 02:09 revealed in the book of Daniel. 02:10 One of the interesting story lines, in the book of Daniel, 02:13 is not written by Daniel, or 02:15 about Daniel, it is written by Nebuchadnezzar. 02:17 It is about Nebuchadnezzar, a heathen king, ruling the world 02:21 and turns his heart fully to God. 02:24 Through the witness of Babylon in the experiences of these 02:26 visions and dreams that we are going to be talking about. 02:29 The bottom line of what we are going to realize friends, 02:31 is that the book of Daniel is not so much about prophecy, 02:35 as it is about relationships. 02:37 In fact, prophecy in Daniel is not as much sensational 02:41 as it is relational. 02:42 The whole book of Daniel in its 02:44 prophetic outline is directing us to a relationship with God. 02:49 The name Daniel, the author of the book, means God will judge, 02:55 or God will vindicate. 02:57 We find that throughout the book of Daniel that God is in this 03:00 process of leading Daniel and 03:02 others through providential 03:04 experiences that pan out in 03:06 judgment, that pan out over and over again. 03:10 Daniel for example, being judged righteous and vindicated through 03:14 experiences he has with the other wise men of Babylon who 03:19 are of Babylon, where as he is a captive 03:22 in this foreign country. 03:24 Then we have prophecies, in the book of Daniel, that highlight 03:28 and emphasize judgment and point foreword to the end of time 03:32 when God's people will be vindicated before their enemies. 03:36 The enemies of God's people will be judged as well. 03:40 Absolutely, in fact that is the theme that runs all through 03:42 the book of Daniel in fact it even begins the book of Daniel. 03:46 What you have at the very beginning of the book of Daniel 03:49 you a judgment that comes to God's people. 03:51 In Daniel chapter 1, let's open our Bibles there. 03:54 We would like to invite you to join us, if you have a Bible 03:57 open it up and we will begin right here in Daniel 1:1. 04:02 "In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah 04:05 came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem 04:08 and he besieged it and the Lord" verse two says, 04:11 and the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah, into his hand 04:16 with part of the vessels of the house of God: 04:19 which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of 04:22 his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure 04:25 house of his god. " 04:26 So right here Ty, we have a judgment of sorts. 04:29 We have the Lord making a decision, a judgment about His 04:32 people and there are reasons for this. 04:34 He has decided to allow His people to go captive 04:37 into Babylon. 04:38 The key word here is allow. 04:40 The language here is very interesting. 04:42 It says the Lord gave Jehoiakim into his hands, that is into 04:48 Nebuchadnezzar's hands. 04:49 So God is operating here from His vantage point of Divine 04:52 wisdom, He is looking down upon the situation of His people. 04:56 He sees their whole history. 04:57 He sees exactly what is necessary in order to arrest 05:01 their attention in order to lead them, guide them back to Him 05:05 to repentance to come back to the Lord. 05:08 Is God's decision, His discernment, what is best at 05:13 this point is to give His people over into the hands of 05:18 their enemies, sometimes we refer to this as 05:20 Divine Providence. 05:23 Even though it is happening here on a massive scale with a whole 05:25 nation that is given over, it happens on a, guess we may 05:29 call it, a micro level in our lives. 05:31 That is where we want to be. Yes! 05:32 God looks at us, He sees exactly what is going on, 05:35 He sees the pattern of the decisions we are making. 05:38 God makes judgments, He makes decisions as to what would be 05:43 best for us as individuals and those whose lives intersect with 05:47 and God allows certain things to take place that 05:51 are for our good. 05:53 I really like that phrase, that last phrase you used there Ty, 05:56 if we go back in the Bible and you have a number of prophets 05:59 that predicted this captivity. 06:01 They predicted this outcome because Israel and Judah 06:05 God's people, were actually rebelling against God. 06:08 They were not really carrying out His will and God's will in 06:12 this context was not only that they would be blessed, 06:15 and a special people, and follow the light that He had given them 06:18 but they would also shower these blessings upon their neighbors. 06:21 And out to the rest of the world 06:23 They were keeping them to themselves and then they were 06:26 actually turning away from the light and the blessings that 06:29 God had for them and they were becoming worse than the heathen 06:31 around them. 06:32 So what was God going to do? He was going to allow them 06:35 to go captive, why? 06:37 Well in Jeremiah 24 God is here predicting the captivity. 06:42 Isaiah was a predictor of this captivity. 06:44 Jeremiah lived through the time of this captivity. 06:47 In Chapter 24:5 God speaking of this captivity in the figure 06:54 of figs, He says, "for thus saith the Lord God of Israel 06:59 like these good figs so will I acknowledge them that are 07:04 carried away captive of Judah, whom I sent out of this place 07:09 into the lead of the Chaldeans for their good. " 07:12 For their good? For their good. 07:13 For their good, here's the thing when God in His Providence 07:16 orchestrates what is for a good, what is best, by giving us over 07:22 to our decisions that we are making the whole time we need to 07:27 understand God's attitude, His heart, His posture towards us is 07:32 not merely to lash out and somehow make us suffer. 07:37 It wasn't His will that His people would suffer at all. 07:40 It's not His will that we would suffer at all. 07:42 but God knows that suffering is very educational in some times 07:46 are decisions are moving in a direction where the only way God 07:50 can possibly get our attention so that things to work out for 07:54 our own good is to let us eat, or to experience, or somehow 07:59 go through the very things that we ourselves are tending toward 08:04 by our decisions. 08:05 I love Jeremiah 12:7 James, it goes very well with what you 08:10 just quoted bear from Isaiah. 08:12 in Jeremiah 12:7 when God has given His people over into 08:16 captivity, He voices His heart toward them and uses beautiful 08:22 language to describe how He feels about these very 08:26 people who are rebelling against Him that are going 08:30 into captivity, He says in Jeremiah 12:7, "I have 08:34 forsaken my house," God says. 08:36 "I have left my heritage. " Now watch this He says, 08:38 "I have given the dearly beloved of My soul into the hand 08:44 of her enemies. " 08:45 This is so precious because even though they are in rebellion 08:48 God describes His people, His rebellious people, 08:52 the dearly beloved of My soul. 08:56 That is God's attitude towards us even when His judgments 08:59 are adverse judgments that bring us pain. 09:02 So what we see here in these two verses, is a loving God 09:06 A loving Father who is doing what is the best for us given 09:10 our choices or our situation. 09:12 Now the reason why this is so important I think in what you 09:16 are trying to say Ty is that this National giving over, 09:20 this National judgment happens to us so often on an individual 09:25 basis, so individually we find trials in our lives, we find 09:29 difficulties, we find circumstances that do not seem 09:34 good to us and we tend to question God, especially if we 09:38 are believers. 09:39 We tend to wonder why did God let this happen? 09:41 Even if we are unbelievers we question why is God allowing 09:44 this to happen? 09:45 We do not recognize in that, the hand of God. 09:49 He is working for our good and we are His dearly beloved. 09:51 When I say dearly beloved, when you say dearly beloved, friends 09:54 when we say dearly beloved, we are not talking about believers. 09:57 We are talking about the principle God so loved the world 10:00 that He gave His only begotten Son, we are God's dearly beloved 10:04 The whole world is God's dearly beloved and yet it suffers. 10:08 It has these trials, it has 10:09 these terrible pains that it is 10:10 going through and if you would 10:11 have asked Daniel, Daniel 10:13 what do you think of God's plan? 10:15 Daniel was just a young man, He was just a teenager, 15, 16, 10:18 years of age. 10:19 What do you think of God's plan? 10:20 God has decided that you will be taken from your home land, 10:25 you will be made a eunuch, and that is what Isaiah 31says, 10:29 The princes would be made Eunuchs, you would be made a 10:32 Eunuch in the kingdom of Babylon, you would serve a 10:35 heathen kind for the rest of your life. 10:36 You will be severed from your family and you will never have 10:39 a family, you will never have kids or grandkids. 10:41 Ever, Daniel what do you think of that plan? What do you think 10:44 of that plan Daniel, Huh, Huh? 10:47 Daniel would probably go that doesn't sound like such a great 10:50 plan, but if you were to take Daniel all the way through his 10:53 experience to the very end of his life, at the very end of his 10:56 life you would say Daniel what do you think of your life 10:58 looking back? Looking back what do you think? 11:00 Ah, I wouldn't have it any other way. 11:02 I've read where an author says 11:05 that if we were in eternity 11:08 future, to look back over the 11:10 entire history of our lives, 11:12 each of us as individuals, 11:14 we will come to the conclusion that we would not chose to be 11:18 led any other way than we were lead. 11:23 God is incredibly, with infinite wisdom, orchestrating exactly 11:30 what is best for us in every given situation. 11:34 In this sense James, He looks upon us and He would rather that 11:38 we would make other choices that what we are making 11:42 often times, but God factors in our free will, and factoring in 11:46 our free will and the choices we are making, God often times 11:51 reluctantly has to give us over to things He would rather not 11:57 give us over too. 11:58 Things He would rather we not experience. 12:00 God is not in favor of slavery. 12:01 Daniel was made a slave in a foreign land. 12:04 God is anti-slavery. 12:05 He did not want Daniel to suffer this fate, but He knew from His 12:11 vantage point that Divine wisdom he knew that ultimately a plan 12:17 was working out, that was for their best good involved God 12:21 releasing them to the direction of their choices. 12:25 Yes and we see this as parents, as grandparents, we see choices 12:30 that our children and grandchildren make and we are 12:34 helpless, in a sense, held back by their freedom of choice even 12:37 though we have some authority over them and power over them, 12:41 some influence over them, but at the same time we have to 12:44 allow them to make certain choices. 12:45 I like what you said about that author, 12:47 I was thinking about Paul. 12:48 When you said in Romans 8:18, "For I reckon that the suffering 12:52 of this present time are not worthy to be compared. " 12:55 "The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be 12:57 compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. " 13:00 What is God's purpose in allowing this? 13:02 It is to get us to heaven, it is to get us saved. 13:05 It is to, and I want to say more than just to heaven saved, it is 13:09 to save us from our bad choices to save us from the ultimate 13:12 result of sin. 13:14 It is precisely because God 13:16 loves us and regards as His 13:19 dearly beloved, that He finds 13:21 it necessary, sometimes, to 13:23 release us to our choices so 13:25 that we touch that which is hot we will be inclined to pull back 13:31 from it and we will not suffer greater loss, He actually allows 13:35 us to make smaller mistakes in order to prevent us from 13:39 making colossal mistakes which would work our ruin. 13:43 This is one of the added aspects of what God is doing. 13:47 When we go through these trials 13:49 they draw us to God. 13:51 They draws us to reach out to 13:53 Him in ways perhaps they have 13:55 never done before. 13:56 Some might say well they drive me away, well that is the choice 13:59 we can make and God is seeking to help us 14:02 to realize our need of Him and be drawn to Him. 14:06 To reach out to Him and connect in ways that we haven't before. 14:10 That is what we are going to find as we continue to study 14:12 this powerful book of Daniel. 14:14 Don't go away, we will be right back! |
Revised 2014-12-17