Participants: Clifford Goldstein
Series Code: CFTF
Program Code: CFTF000011
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00:21 Hi Cliff Goldstein, and I want to welcome you to the Program
00:24 Contending for the Faith 00:26 During the fall of 1979 00:31 under the looming shadow of my twenty-fourth birthday 00:37 I had a dramatic, life changing experience 00:41 For two and a half years I had been writing a novel 00:44 This novel was my god. I mean characters in the book 00:48 controlled my life more than I controlled 00:50 the life of the characters. Then that evening 00:53 one evening the Lord Jesus Christ came to my, in my room 00:58 and He said, Cliff you've been playing with me long enough 01:02 if you want me tonight burn your novel. 01:06 Just like that. Now this all didn't happen in a vacuum 01:11 There was a whole lot of background to this 01:14 things that happened that took me from being an agnostic or an 01:17 atheist to someone who knew there was something out there 01:21 ok? But then suddenly I was sure at that moment 01:26 what that was. Now the problem was simple. 01:30 The novel was my god. The Lord showed me that I must, you have 01:34 no other gods besides me, and so if I wanted the Lord, 01:39 if I wanted truth, the book had to go. 01:42 Then after couple hours or whatever you might call divine 01:48 human wrestling and knowing nothing about salvation 01:52 nothing about the Three Angels Message 01:55 nothing about myself as a sinner 01:58 I took this manuscript, two and a half years of my life 02:02 everything that I had, and I burned it on a small hot plate 02:07 in my room. And that was the night I became a born again 02:12 believer in Jesus. Now my exper- ience that night was just that. 02:21 It was an experience. It was personal, it was subjective 02:26 it was interior. I think anybody standing in the room 02:30 wouldn't have heard or seen anything 02:32 and in one sense there was really nothing logical 02:35 nothing scientific, nothing that could be explained 02:39 from any other common academic disciplines 02:42 I think psychologists might have had a hard time 02:45 trying to explain it, or a fun time trying to explain it 02:49 But it meant nothing to me. What happened to me that night 02:53 it was mystical, it was supernatural, it was beyond 02:59 rationality. Kinda like Saul's little road trip to Damascus. 03:04 as seen in the book of Acts. 03:06 Read the story of Paul again and tell me how logical how rational 03:12 how scientific that was. Anyway the next day 03:18 in a health food store I had my first Bible Study ever 03:24 And we went through Daniel 2. And we went through the sequence 03:29 of Kingdoms. Babylon, Medo Persia, Greece, Rome 03:33 and the breakup of Rome. And when they came to the feet and 03:37 toes of iron and clay in the statue, 03:40 and the text says they shall mingle themselves 03:43 with the seed of men but they shall not cleave one to another 03:47 even as iron is not mixed with clay. In Daniel 2:43 03:52 all that's symbolic of modern Europe. 03:55 I burst into tears. And I remember I looked at them 04:01 and I said "it's all true. It's all true." 04:05 I mean here, for the first time in my life 04:09 was powerful confirmation. Not just for God 04:13 but for His foreknowledge and His sovereignty 04:17 Here on the page before me in that store 04:20 was logical, objective and public evidence for belief. 04:24 With Daniel 2 my experience of the night before 04:30 was now underpinned on a platform 04:33 a platform that remains as solid, as faith affirming 04:37 and as rational now as it was for me over 34 years ago 04:44 in that, in that room and in that Health Food Store. 04:48 And that's what I want to talk about today. 04:52 Because you know, experiences fade. 04:58 Experiences fade, and there, and you can forget 05:04 and you go on and on and on 05:08 And some days I don't have good spiritual experiences 05:12 Some days I feel empty inside, I feel spiritually empty 05:18 But no matter how I feel, no matter what bad experiences 05:23 I must be happening, I might be having, 05:27 Daniel 2 is always there. Never changing and remains solid 05:33 and logical, rational reasons for faith and for belief 05:38 that can come in quite handy when you might not necessarily 05:43 feel so full of faith, feel so strong in your belief. 05:49 But no matter how I feel, I've always got Daniel 2. 05:54 And that's what I wanna look at 05:56 You know for starters, there's no question 06:02 that the narrative story itself of Daniel 2 06:05 isn't exactly brimming with rationality 06:09 I mean, come on. A king has a dream that he can't remember 06:13 And so he demands the wise men to tell him the dream 06:17 And they can't tell him the dream so he's gonna tear 06:20 their houses down and rip their limbs off. 06:23 Well when they can't do it y'know, they're 06:25 you know looking in sheep livers and all that 06:28 isn't going to cut it for them so he orders everyone 06:31 killed. Then Daniel goes back and tells his friends 06:35 and Daniel prays and God gives him the answer to the dream 06:38 They interpret it and it saves the day. 06:41 Hardly the logic of geometry to be sure! 06:48 However, on the other hand logic and reason exude 06:54 from the prophecy itself. 07:09 Without supernatural interven- tion how could he have 07:12 gone through the ages, through millennia even 07:16 and so accurately depict the rise and fall of those empires 07:21 as he did? Daniel almost 600 years before Christ 07:26 lays out the history of the world that comes after him 07:31 Babylon, Medo Persia, Greece, Rome, the breakup of Rome 07:36 into the divided nations of modern Europe today 07:40 Again, the man was writing 5-600 years before Christ 07:45 We're not talking about some theoretical phenomenon here 07:50 A few girls claiming to have been visited by the Virgin Mary 07:56 or someone given magic goggles and enabled them to interpret 08:01 sacred books, supposedly sacred books 08:05 We're talking about reality as firm, as public an unchanging 08:12 as world history. What firmer broader and more immutable 08:17 foundation, the history of the world could God have used 08:23 to give us to build an edifice of faith? 08:27 I mean the whole world can blow up tomorrow 08:30 but there'll have always been a Babylon a Medo Persia a Greece 08:37 a Rome. It's a foundation rooted in the past 08:40 and even God can't change the past 08:43 That's what God has given us to help ground our faith 08:46 and it is powerful. It's so powerful 08:51 in fact that people want to try to get around it. 08:54 The logic and reasonableness of Daniel 2 08:57 has been so strong for so long that people try to undermine it. 09:02 I mean if you don't believe in God, 09:04 if you don't believe in the supernatural 09:08 If you don't believe in God of the Bible 09:10 you're gonna have to come up with something to explain this 09:13 prophecy because it presents on the face of it 09:16 powerful and logical evidence for the God of the Bible. 09:21 You know I once read something or someone tried to say 09:23 "well how did Moses get the Ten Commandments?" 09:26 They said he was on drugs that's how he got the 10 Commandments 09:30 They had to explain the story somehow! 09:33 So some folks have tried to find a way to explain 09:37 Tried to find a way to explain away Daniel 2 09:41 Now the most entrenched attempt 09:45 remains the so called Maccabean Hypothesis 09:49 Which claims the book wasn't written when it says it was 09:52 But was written centuries later after the events themselves 09:56 This idea was first promulgated by a philosopher Porphyry 10:01 who lived about 234-305 AD 10:05 who argued that Daniel had been written in the second century 10:09 by the Jews under the Seleucid Greeks 10:13 Today this view infects most of Christendom 10:18 including a majority of commentaries. 10:22 The book of Daniel, millions believe 10:25 was written about 167-164 BC towards the Maccabean revolt 10:34 against Antiochus Epiphanes you know which Jews celebrate 10:39 that today as Hanukkah, the feast of lights. 10:41 Growin up in a Jewish home we weren't very religious 10:44 but I remember we did celebrate Hanukkah. 10:47 I liked it. We used to get the Hanukkah gilt. 10:49 It was chocolate, candy made up like coins and so on. 10:54 The point is, the point in all this is that 10:58 they said that Daniel was written vaticinium ex eventu 11:02 a Latin Phrase for "written after the happening took place" 11:07 in short what they're saying is though Daniel dates himself 11:12 to the 7th-6th century BC that's not true. 11:15 It was really written hundreds of years later 11:19 Ok. Now, the Maccabean hypothesis has always been flawed 11:25 for a lot of reasons even though people still adhere to it. 11:30 Words that were supposibly be used around the time of Daniel 11:35 were said to be there. They said Daniel used words that 11:39 weren't supposed to be there in his time. 11:41 Well that has proven to be wrong. They have discovered 11:44 other things from that time where those words were used 11:48 Supposedly he made mistakes in the name of a king. 11:51 That's wrong. Turned out he was right after all 11:55 Inclusion in the dead sea scrolls. 11:57 How could Daniel have been in the Dead Sea Scrolls? 12:00 They consider the dates that the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. 12:04 Now, not everybody has accepted it. The Maccabean hypothesis. 12:10 But the vast majority of the Christian world has 12:14 And yet, I believe the prophecy itself shows how ludicrous 12:20 the Maccabean hypothesis is. Let's assume ok, let's assume 12:26 for argument's sake ok? Let's assume that Daniel 12:30 was written in 160 BC ok? I totally reject it. 12:35 But here's the thing. How could anyone, 12:38 living more than 150 years before the birth of Christ 12:42 predict with such accuracy this dismantling of the Roman Empire 12:47 into the smaller powers of Europe 12:49 that would not cleave one to another 12:54 even as iron is not mixed with clay. 12:58 You know I live in the Washington DC area 13:01 and I have friends in the Intelligence community 13:05 and I remember when I asked one of my neighbors during the 13:07 as the Soviet Union was collapsing, 13:09 I asked one of my neighbors who worked at NSA, 13:13 he's one of these NSA people you know, 13:14 they never tell you what they do only after you wheedle it out 13:17 or at least find out where they work 13:19 and I remember as the Soviet Union was collapsing 13:23 I asked my NSA friend, did you people have any idea 13:28 of this and he said, "we're looking at this 13:31 with our jaws dropping," ok? 13:34 Here you have the most sophisticated 13:36 spy agency in the world. They probably knew every time 13:40 Gorbachev burped. They were following the Soviet Union 13:44 and yet even up to a year and a half before they had no idea 13:50 that the Soviet Union was going to collapse. 13:53 so how could somebody like Daniel, a 160 years 13:58 supposedly 160 years before Christ so accurately predict 14:03 what was going to happen? The whole point of the Maccabean 14:07 hypothesis was to deny the supernatural. 14:10 Was to deny predicted prophecy. Yet, Daniel 2's prophetic reach 14:15 was so great that it overwhelms this pathetic human attempt 14:21 to nullify it. The hypothesis fails to denude 14:25 the book of Daniel of the one thing the hypothesis 14:29 tried to denude it of and that was the supernatural element 14:33 of Daniel itself. Now think about this too. 14:39 The power of Daniel was so great that this guy Porphyry 14:43 writing in the 3rd-4th century AD 14:47 was so scared of the book, he was so scared that he 14:50 tried to denude it of prophecy. So he concocted the idea 14:54 that it was written later than it was. This was 1800 years ago. 15:00 Now think about this. If 18 centuries ago the power of 15:05 Daniel's prophecies were so strong that somebody back then 15:09 tried to undermine it. How much more powerful should the book be 15:13 for us today? With so much more history has unfolded 15:18 than had in Porphyry's time. And a simple point worth considering 15:23 if Daniel was so accurate about the future, 15:26 isn't it logical and reasonable to trust him on something 15:30 easier than making predictions 100s, 1000s of years in advance 15:34 and that is on the dates that he himself gave for the book. 15:41 Now there's more. The King's dream in chapter 2 15:48 was of a statue, world history symbolized in sculpture 15:52 The common interpretation, the gold head Babylon, 15:56 the silver arms and breast Medo Persia, 16:02 the brass belly and thighs Greece, 16:05 the legs iron, Pagan Rome and the feet and toes 16:10 part iron and part clay, the divided nations of Europe. 16:14 This is not uniquely Adventist. 16:17 Millions of Christians and Jews have understood it this way 16:23 for centuries. But now, catch this point 16:27 because this is important. Unlike the first three kingdoms 16:32 whose metal stopped at their demise, 16:35 the iron of the 4th kingdom, the iron that comes after Greece 16:40 it starts in the leg and it goes all the way down in the feet 16:44 it goes all the way down to the end. 16:47 See, in other words, the 4th kingdom which arose after Greece 16:53 though changing form extends all the way 16:57 into the end of the world it extends all the way down 17:00 into the feet. These facts help identify 17:04 it helps definitely identify because what world power 17:09 arising after Greece extends to the end of time. 17:14 There's one and only one. It's Rome. Pagan and Papal. 17:21 What other power arises after ancient Greece 17:25 which extends in the centuries before Christ? Started then 17:29 and extends to the end? Daniel 2 in this outline forms 17:35 with this forms a basic outline for the rest of the prophetic 17:39 chapters in the book. This is especially clear 17:44 in Daniel 7 and Daniel 8 which all put, have the same sequence 17:50 Babylon, Medo Persia, Greece Rome. Only they give more detail 17:55 And the point is if you lined up Daniel 2, Daniel 7 and Daniel 8 18:00 you would have Babylon, Babylon you wouldn't have Babylon 18:04 in Daniel 8 because it's fading by then. But you got Babylon 18:07 you got Medo Persia, Medo Persia Medo Persia 18:10 you got Greece, Greece, Greece 18:13 And then you got Rome all the way through. 18:16 In Daniel 7 the four beasts parallel to 4 metals in Daniel 2 18:21 and in Daniel 7 the 4th kingdom, the one that arises after Greece 18:26 though changing form continues to the end of the world. 18:31 It's the same four powers given in more detail as in Daniel 2 18:38 ok, the iron, again the iron the 4th beast the last earthly power 18:43 arises after Greece and goes down to the end of the world. 18:49 Again what could that be but Rome? Daniel 7, after Greece 18:54 you got a power coming up after Greece, that beast power 18:59 the emphasis then becomes on the little horn which is then 19:03 destroyed at the end of time but it is still the same power 19:07 after Greece extending till the end. In Daniel 8 the same 19:12 sequence but the final power, the power that arises 19:17 after Greece though changing some characteristics 19:21 endures to the end as well. So you have this sequence 19:25 in all these chapters. Babylon, 19:28 though it's not mentioned in Daniel 8 but you've got Babylon, 19:32 you've got Medo Persia, you've got Greece and you've got Rome. 19:36 Now here's the point. Here's the point ok? In all 3 chapters 19:44 In all 3 chapters, don't miss this. The power that arises 19:49 after Greece's fall, in the century before Christ 19:54 remains until the end. Daniel 2 Daniel 7 and Daniel 8. 19:59 This one power arises after Greece and goes all the way 20:03 through to the end of time. Though in one case though, 20:08 at one point it changes form. Again, what the only power that 20:15 could be, it solely, totally only will. 20:19 You know many people shy away from this because it's not 20:23 considered a politically correct interpretation. 20:26 Or some people they get caught up in current events. 20:29 I can remember 30 some years ago reading some people 20:32 in a magazine and they were dissing all Oh we're wrong 20:36 the Adventist interpretation everybody knows 20:38 coz if you look at it, the only possible power that could be 20:42 that end time power could be, the only possible thing 20:45 it could be was the Soviet Union. Well they got it wrong. 20:50 And now people are saying it's Islam. 20:52 I'm sorry Islam didn't come up right after Greece 20:56 and go all the way down. It doesn't fit. 20:59 This power, the only possible thing it could be 21:03 coming up after the fall of Greece going through to the end 21:07 is solely, totally and only Rome 21:11 We're on solid ground with this. 21:14 Solid as the history of the world itself. 21:18 But anyway I don't want to just focus on the past now 21:22 only on decayed and dead kingdoms 21:25 because the hope the chapter presents is a future hope. 21:29 From us, for our perspective today 21:32 how Daniel handled what came before our time 21:37 should make us trust him for what comes after. 21:40 I mean Daniel was right on all those other chapters 21:43 ok, all the other kingdoms that came 21:47 why don't we trust him? Why should we trust him on the one 21:50 kingdom that hasn't come yet? Ok could you see the point? 21:55 Daniel says eventually all these earthly kingdoms 21:59 you know Daniel predicted all these kingdoms would come and go 22:04 You know I remember when I was about, I grew up in Miami Beach 22:09 and when you turn 18 there's a rite of passage 22:13 you go to the race track, the dog track 22:17 Well I was only 17 but I looked older so I went to the dog track 22:22 And I walked into the dog track 22:26 I'm gonna gamble, gonna make it big and rich 22:31 And I walk into the dog track 22:33 and something catches my attention 22:37 And I'm lookin, and I said there's something here 22:41 there's something speaking to me here but I'm not sure what it is 22:45 Then it hit me. Then it hit me. There were 12 ticket windows 22:53 12 ticket windows. 10 of the windows took your money 23:01 Two of the windows handed out winnings. 23:05 And right there in my precious 17 year old innocent mind 23:10 I suddenly saw not only was this illusion proposition, 23:15 but I knew exactly what the odds were 23:19 The odds were 5:1, I was gonna lose. 23:22 Now it just so happened today that I put 5$ on a dog 23:25 I can make 35$. So I happened to win that day 23:27 But I realized in the end what a losing proposition this was. 23:32 But now look at Daniel. Daniel was right. Medo Persia came and 23:37 went as predicted. I mean, Babylon came and went 23:41 as predicted. One for one. Medo Persia came and went 23:45 as predicted. Two for two. Greece came an went as predicted 23:51 Three for three. Pagan Rome came and went as predicted. 23:56 The breakup of the nations of modern Europe 23:59 as predicted. From our historical stand point 24:03 the only kingdom that hasn't come yet is the final kingdom. 24:08 But we're here. We can look back We could see Babylon 24:11 we could see Medo Persia, we could see Greece 24:13 We could see Rome and the break up of Rome. 24:15 He was right on all these others. You will have to be a 24:18 a fool. The numbers alone the math alone, the statistics alone 24:24 show us that we could trust Daniel on the fifth 24:31 and final kingdom. The one kingdom that hasn't yet come. 24:35 But you know we have even a better reason 24:40 A better reason for believing in this final kingdom 24:45 which Jesus establishes when He comes 24:49 And the best reason I have for believing in the second coming 24:55 of Jesus is the first coming. I mean, think about it. 25:01 Without the second coming, I hate to say it, 25:05 but Jesus wasted His time at the first coming 25:09 What good does the first coming do for me, 25:12 does the first coming do for me without the second coming for me 25:16 Without the second coming He wasted His time 25:18 Jesus should've stayed in heaven and never bothered to come 25:21 to begin with, because we're gonna be stuck here 25:24 Well you say Christ left us a good example 25:26 on how to live and that's fine and I appreciate that. 25:29 But Martin Luther King, Gandhi left us a good example 25:33 Captain Kangaroo left us a good example. 25:36 But I don't know about you. My situation is too desperate 25:40 I need more than a good example 25:43 I need a Savior. I need right- eousness credited to me 25:47 that I don't have. I need a substitute, I need a Redeemer 25:51 I need someone paying a price that I myself can't pay 25:56 More than anything else I need someone who can take this corpse 26:04 this body of mine which is one day gonna be in the ground 26:10 In other words I need more than someone who could tell me to 26:13 turn the cheek, go the extra mile 26:16 I need someone who's going to raise this corpse 26:18 from the dirt. Who can clothe our mortality with immortality 26:23 Who can change this corruption into incorruption 26:28 Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Captain Kangaroo can't do that for me. 26:33 Only Jesus can. So as sure as I am about Christ 26:38 and what Christ did for me at the first coming 26:42 That's as sure as I could be that He will return 26:46 and that fifth and final kingdom will be established. 26:51 I still remember my first Bible Study of Daniel 2 26:56 34 years ago. It was so far in the past in one sense 27:03 but what is 34 years but just a faint little breath 27:07 amid the harsh winds of history 27:10 as depicted by the metals of that prophecy. 27:13 And what are those empires of gold and silver 27:17 and bronze and clay? What are they compared to 27:21 God's fifth and final kingdom? 27:23 A kingdom which shall never be destroyed. 27:27 And the kingdom shall not be left to other people 27:30 But it shall break the kingdoms in pieces 27:33 and consume all these kingdoms. 27:35 And it shall stand forever! 27:39 Whoo! That's the promise. 27:43 The promise of a kingdom and a city which has foundations 27:48 whose builder and maker is God. 27:52 And I leave you with this. 27:54 I leave you with this coz in one sense it's so simple 27:58 it's so logical, it's so reasonable 28:01 Because Daniel was so right about the first four kingdoms 28:06 How rational and reasonable then to trust him on the fifth. 28:12 The one that lasts forever. 28:14 The one that is guaranteed us through the blood of Jesus. |
Revised 2015-03-05