Participants: Pastor Shawn Boonstra
Series Code: RSP
Program Code: RSP000001A
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01:21 Announcer: Revelation. The time of the end.
01:24 Mysterious signs. 01:25 Strange happenings. 01:27 Confusing numbers. 01:29 Are we facing a new world order and the mark of the beast? 01:34 Are we living on a planet in upheaval? 01:36 Are we on the verge of Armageddon? 01:45 Revelation, what do all the signs in this mysterious book mean? 01:52 Discover real answers. 01:54 Revelation Speaks Peace, with Shawn Boonstra. 01:58 + 02:00 >>Shawn Boonstra: Welcome, everybody, to "Revelation Speaks Peace." This is a seminar 02:04 experience that began for me about twenty-three years ago with a small group of about 02:11 eight people. And from that point on, it kind of grew and grew and grew and now we've held 02:17 this seminar on every continent except Antarctica, and that's because the penguins are not 02:24 interested in the book of Revelation. I can't get an audience to come out in 02:27 Antarctica, but every other continent. And for a little while, I was actually putting 02:33 this seminar on three, four, five, six times a year, but now I have a day job, and so I can 02:38 only do it one time a year. And so once a year, we look around the world and we pick one city 02:44 to do this in. And so in recent years, we've been in Budapest; we've been in Lima; we've been 02:51 in Rajahmundry, a little city of about two million people in India; Los Angeles and Phoenix 02:56 and Portland and Rome, Italy, and Indianapolis last year, and now we have come to the land of 03:03 mild winters and warm-hearted people, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Now, I was born in Canada, born 03:15 and raised up near the Yukon border. And whenever I have visited Minnesota in February, I 03:20 have always thought your licence plate should say, "Almost Canada," because it almost is. 03:27 I am so glad you have come. Again, my name is Shawn Boonstra. I am the speaker for a 03:31 very old radio broadcast known as the Voice of Prophecy. In fact, I believe it may have been 03:38 one of the very first Christian broadcasts on the radio in the world. It went on the air in 03:44 1929 when a guy by the name of H. M. S. Richards from Colorado went on the air on KNX radio in 03:53 Los Angeles. And I believe that over the next decade, he was one of only four religious 03:59 broadcasts on the radio at all. Now, I'm sure my team will tell me I got that all wrong, but 04:04 that is roughly the way that it happened. It started out as a program called the Tabernacle of 04:10 the Air. And if you were listening to the radio in the 1930s, you may remember that 04:15 program. Later on, it changed to the Voice of Prophecy, and now it has become a worldwide radio 04:22 broadcast, and it's connected with the world's oldest, I believe, and biggest 04:29 correspondence Bible school. It was originally called the "Bible School of the Air," now called 04:36 the "Discover Bible School." So the broadcast is actually eighty-five years old now, and 04:42 obviously, I am not eighty-five years old. In fact, I just joined the Voice of Prophecy 04:47 twenty months ago. And one of the reasons they asked me to join the team was this seminar, 04:53 which I've been conducting for a little more than twenty years now. Now, before we get going 05:00 tonight - this is not the seminar or the lecture - I want to explain how it's going to 05:03 work and give just a general orientation. And tomorrow night, I'll give a shorter orientation 05:09 and then we'll be off to the races. We're going to have a textbook in this seminar, and 05:14 only one textbook. The textbook is going to be the Bible. And the reason that I kind of just 05:20 stick with the Bible is very simple: If you walk into any bookstore today and get books on 05:26 last-day events or the book of Revelation, you will discover that there are a lot of 05:31 divergent theories, and some of them are a little weird. I mean, I'll just be honest. I've read 05:35 thousands of books, and some of them are weird and nobody seems to agree. 05:40 And here's what I've discovered: If you just stick with the text and read it, it's, generally 05:45 speaking, the best approach, and it is amazing how clear it can become if you just read it. And 05:52 of course, on occasion, I'll go back and look at what people have said historically. You 05:56 know, the Ante-Nicene fathers and the Post-Nicene fathers and the reformers and the 06:00 counter-reformers and so on. We'll look at that from time to time, but for the most part, 06:05 we're going to stick with just the text found in the Bible itself and let the Bible be its 06:09 own expositor, because you're going to discover, there's actually enough detail in the 06:15 Bible to make it very clear what the author actually originally intended. The key is, you just 06:21 have to read the whole book from Genesis all the way to Revelation. What we're going to 06:28 do in this seminar is provide the right tools that you need to do that. We're going to give you 06:32 the right frame of reference. If you understand how the book of Revelation was written, how it 06:37 was meant to be read, if you understand the original context it was written in, suddenly, it 06:42 makes very good sense. But it's going to take a little bit of time and effort on our part 06:47 because, as you know, Rome was not built in a day, and the Bible wasn't written in a day 06:53 either; it took 1,500 years to write it; 44 different authors over all those years, and so 06:58 it's going to take a little bit of effort on our part to really dig into it. So what we're going 07:03 to do every night is I'm going to cover one of the major themes found in Bible prophecy, and 07:08 I'll give you some of the tools you need to understand that theme and really understand 07:12 prophecy for yourself. And I guess what I'm after, by the time we're finished, is for you 07:17 to be able to sit down and read a book like the book of Revelation or the book of Daniel 07:20 and understand it just as easily as you would understand any other book - Matthew, Mark, 07:25 Luke, John, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus - any other book of the Bible. I want it to be easy 07:30 to read and I want it to make good sense when you read it. So we're going to touch on big 07:34 themes every night, and quite a few of them. I'm going to plough through a lot of territory. And 07:40 each night, we're going to build on what we covered the night before. So when we're done 07:44 tonight, what we have learned, we're going to carry forward into tomorrow night. So it does 07:50 become important to follow along. And I know that people are very, very busy. I've got 07:56 two teenage daughters who keep me very, very busy. If it's not soccer, it's music lessons; if 08:02 it's not music lessons, it's me running the boys off of our property. They keep - I 08:07 understand what it is like to be very, very busy. But I would encourage you, because this may 08:12 only come to Minneapolis once in your lifetime, to clear your calendar and come to as many of 08:17 these you can, because we will build each night. It's kind of like building a house. You know, 08:22 we'll put down a foundation tonight, and the next night, we'll put up some studs and then 08:26 some sheeting on the studs and we'll hang doors and windows and - well, I guess you should put 08:29 the roof on first, and then hang the doors and windows, and then we'll call in the finish 08:33 carpenters and so on, and once we've gathered all the pieces, we're going to step back to the 08:37 curb and look at what we built, and it'll knock your socks off. Maybe not literally. It already 08:43 knocked my shoes off. I'm not wearing any because Canadians don't wear shoes indoors. It'll 08:48 knock your socks off. It will take your breath away. The picture in the book of 08:52 Revelation absolutely revolutionized my own life. And once you see the big picture, it 08:59 is breathtaking. Our subject tonight, "A new world order." I've had people come to this 09:07 seminar from every walk of life: Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist, Muslim. Personally, my 09:16 own bias is, I am a Bible-believing Christian. I want everybody to feel perfectly 09:20 comfortable, but it is my custom to always offer a prayer before I read the Bible because it's 09:27 such a profound book and it's changed my life. And so if you'll indulge me for a moment, 09:31 I'd like to do that. Father in heaven, thank You for the opportunity to stand up here and 09:38 speak. I know who I am and I know where I've been. And I would have no right to say 09:47 anything except that You would bless me, that You would forgive my sin, and that You would give 09:53 me the ability to think clearly. So I ask most of all that tonight, I would have the 10:01 opportunity to put a smile on Your face because I've been faithful with what the Bible 10:05 says. And I thank You for that tonight, in Jesus' name, amen. Our topic is "A new world 10:14 order." And tonight, I want to start with one of the biggest questions that has ever been 10:19 asked in the history of humanity. And there really is no point in studying anything else 10:24 in the Bible, there's no point looking at the book of Revelation, unless we can answer 10:28 this one question: Does God actually exist? Is there any meaning or purpose to our 10:35 existence as human beings here on this planet? Or is it possible that we're just an 10:40 accident, a bunch of accidental life forms that came into being by chance on an insignificant 10:46 planet out on the edge of an insignificant galaxy? Do you and I actually mean anything and is 10:54 there any rhyme or reason to human history? I'm going to take you to a very unusual place 10:59 to begin answering that question. We're going to go back in time roughly 200 years and 11:05 visit Beethoven. This is Beethoven, one of history's greatest composers, in my 11:10 opinion, and he actually wrote the piece of music that you are listening to. It's kind of there 11:16 in the background. This is his third symphony. It's called the Eroica symphony. He wrote it for 11:24 one of his favourite people, who he considered a hero. And this piece of music might actually be 11:30 one of the soundtracks of the whole universe. This piece of music actually begins to answer 11:37 the question, "Does God really exist?" because he wrote it for his hero. He wrote a dedication 11:46 on the front page of this symphony. But when the truth came out about the man he wrote 11:50 this symphony for, he threw a fit of rage and he ripped the front page out and we almost 11:55 lost this piece of music forever. And on the day that Beethoven ripped out the front 12:02 page from this piece of music, he unwittingly gave us evidence that God is quite real. And he 12:10 also completed a story that began 2,400 years before he was born, a story that began in an 12:19 ancient king's bedroom. The king's name was Nebuchadnezzar, the man who built the 12:25 Neo-Babylonian empire approximately 600 years before Christ. Now, this is not the 12:31 ancient, ancient Babylonian empire that you read about with the four cities on the plains of 12:36 Shinar and Hammurabi the lawgiver. This is much later. This is a renewed and renovated 12:43 Babylonian empire. Nebuchadnezzar is the man who rebuilt that empire and he ruled 12:50 the ancient Middle East approximately 2,600 years ago. And one night, something 12:57 happened in this man's bedroom that would determine world history for the next 2,600 13:03 years. 13:05 What was it? A dream. A nightmare, to be more exact. He suddenly wakes up in the wee 13:11 hours of the morning. His heart is pounding in his chest. There is a cold bead of sweat running 13:17 down his forehead, and his eyes are darting around in the dark trying to figure out, is there 13:22 somebody in this room? The story records this dream in the book of Daniel chapter 2. Here's what 13:31 the Bible says. "Now, in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, Nebuchadnezzar had 13:36 dreams; and his spirit was so troubled that his sleep left him." A man who was scared of 13:44 nothing is now suddenly terrified of a mere dream. This is a man who is not afraid of 13:52 death - he has looked death in the eye many times. This is a man who is not afraid of risk - 13:58 he has risked everything many times. This is a man who is not afraid of ambition - he's one of 14:03 the most ambitious men in ancient history. But now he's terrified of a dream because the 14:08 dream has just told him he's about to lose it all. And that scares him like nothing else 14:13 could. He wakes up in the middle of the night. It's one of those dreams you have where even after 14:18 you wake up and you realize it was just a dream, it bothers you for hours, for days. It's like 14:26 those dreams where your teeth are falling out. You ever had that dream? Nobody? I'm the only 14:32 one in Minneapolis ever had the - How many of you have ever had that dream where your teeth are 14:36 falling out of your head and you're picking them up off the floor and trying to put them 14:39 back in? Nobody. Three, four. It happens to me all the time, my teeth are falling out of my 14:45 head, I'm trying - and for days afterwards, I'm checking my teeth to see if the - some 14:50 dreams stick with you. And he wakes up and he realizes, "Oh, it was just a dream." But it 14:57 bothers him for hours, enough that eventually he calls for his councillors. He calls for the 15:02 wise men of the Babylonian empire. These men are known as the Chaldeans. They're 15:08 magicians. They're actually called magi; that's where we get the word "magician." We just 15:13 came through the Christmas season. Remember in the Christmas season, we always tell 15:17 the story about three wise men who came from the east, from the region where Babylon used to be. 15:25 They were known as the magi. They're Chaldeans. These guys are the philosophers of the 15:29 empire. They're the scientists and the astronomers and the mathematicians and the priests 15:35 of the empire. They're really clever guys. They're the religious authorities of 15:39 Nebuchadnezzar's day. They're very talented. And they claim that they have a special 15:45 connection to the gods. So Nebuchadnezzar calls for them in the middle of the night, and you 15:51 might too if you were a Babylonian. The Bible continues the story in Daniel 2 and verse 15:56 2. "So they came and stood before the king [these Chaldeans]. And the king said to 16:02 them, 'I have had a dream, and my spirit is anxious to know the dream.' The Chaldeans spoke to 16:08 the king in Aramaic [the language of the day], 'O king, live forever! Tell your servants 16:14 the dream, and we will give [you] the interpretation.'" Ah, they breathed a sigh of a 16:20 relief. "We got called here at three in the morning. We thought it was a state emergency, but 16:24 it's just a dream. This is easy. Nebuchadnezzar, we can handle this for you. We'll run down to 16:30 the royal library and get our star charts and our books and we'll be right back and then you 16:35 tell us what you dreamt and we will tell you what it meant." For some reason, the king 16:42 suddenly doesn't trust them. He smells a rat. He gets this feeling in his stomach that 16:47 maybe these men he'd been depending on aren't actually honest. Something tells him, 16:52 "Maybe they've been lying to me for my whole career." Now, that is not a good thing when you're 16:58 running an empire full of subjugated people. You can't afford to have bad intelligence 17:03 and lying advisors. And he did just dream that he's about to lose his empire, so he puts 17:10 these men to the test in verse 5. "The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, 'My decision 17:16 is formed. If you do not make known the dream to me and its interpretation, you shall be cut 17:22 in pieces, and your houses shall be made an ash heap.'" You ever gone to your boss and said, "I 17:30 don't think my job is challenging enough"? You didn't do that in the Babylonian empire 17:36 because he would lay a big challenge on you. If you guys don't step up your game, if you 17:41 don't tell me what I actually dreamt, I'm going to chop you in pieces and burn down your house. 17:48 "However, he says, "if you tell the dream and its interpretation, you shall 17:52 receive from me gifts, rewards, and great honour. Therefore tell me the dream and its 18:00 interpretation." Now they've got a big problem. What are they going to do? They get into a 18:07 huddle, they panic, "What are we going to do? He wants to know what he dreamt. He's the only 18:11 one who saw it. How are we going to know? We can't fake this one, guys. What are we going to do?" 18:15 And they come back to the king and they attempt to reason with him in verse 7. "They answered 18:20 again and said, 'Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we'll give the interpretation.'" 18:25 Come on, Nebuchadnezzar, you know how it works. You gave us the employee handbook on our 18:30 first day of work and it says in there, you tell us what you dream, and we interpret it. 18:35 Those are the rules of the whole game. Read the handbook. "The king answered and said, 'I know 18:44 for certain that you would gain time,'" [you guys are stalling because you see my decision is 18:51 firm]. "'If you do not make known the dream to me, there is only one decree for you! For you 18:57 have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me till the time has changed.'" [You think 19:02 I'm going to forget about this.] "'Therefore tell me the dream and I will know that you can 19:08 share the interpretation.'" I want you to pay attention very carefully to what's happening in 19:14 this story. If you choose to live a lie, it's only a matter of time until somebody takes you 19:23 and pushes you out in the bright sunlight and you're discovered. It's guaranteed to happen. 19:29 Eventually, everybody's metal, everybody's character is put to the test. If you live a lie, 19:36 you'll be found out. Brian Williams just found that out the hard way. And for these 19:42 Chaldeans, the lie is now over. They've been faking it their whole careers and they've been 19:47 exposed. What are they going to do? Because they cannot get inside the king's head and 19:51 figure out what he dreamt. They can't read human minds. Nobody can. It's the reason that we 20:00 seem to think we have to torture people to try and get information. Nobody can read 20:03 human minds. The Bible actually teaches in 1st Samuel chapter 8 and verse 39, where Solomon is 20:10 dedicating the first temple in Jerusalem, that only God knows the hearts of men. Only God can 20:17 get inside the mind. Only He knows. And so these guys have a very, very big problem. And so 20:23 what do they do? They give up. And for the first time in their career, they finally tell the 20:27 truth. "'Nebuchadnezzar, that is a difficult thing that the king requests.'" "'There is no 20:36 other who can tell it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.'" 20:41 "But I thought you guys were connected to the gods, had a direct pipeline?" "Oh, that's 20:48 not quite how it works, Nebuchadnezzar." Well, the king, the story tells us, blows a 20:52 gasket, and you probably would too. He had trusted these men with his entire career. The 20:58 Bible says in verse 12: "For this reason, the king was angry and very furious and gave the 21:03 command to destroy all the wise men of Babylon." That's it. Go, get them all. The guards go out 21:11 and round up the Chaldeans for their early retirement party. Chop in pieces, burn down the 21:16 house. Check, check. And as they're going around the empire, they come to the house of a 21:22 young man named Daniel. The prophetic book in the Old Testament called Daniel is named 21:28 after him. His name means "God is my judge." And Daniel is not a Babylonian, mm-mm. He's a 21:35 Hebrew. He's a member of the royal family of Jerusalem. He's taken captive when 21:39 Nebuchadnezzar sieges the city of Jerusalem. And he's marched through the wilderness up north 21:45 back down into Babylon in chains. And when he gets to Babylon, he's not put out in the 21:50 fields like the rest of them because he's from the royal family. They put him in a 21:54 special retraining program. They immerse him in Babylonian culture. They actually rename 22:00 him Belteshazzar after the Babylonian god Bel. And they teach him in Babylonian schools 22:06 and they feed him Babylonian food and they stick him in Babylonian culture because 22:10 they're hoping against all odds that this member of the royal family will begin to think and 22:15 act like a Babylonian. And if he does, he will keep the rest of his people in line. But Daniel 22:22 never compromises and he is so bright - in this story, he's not even 20 years old - he rises to 22:28 the top of the school, and he's so clever, so smart, so wise before he's 20, that they just 22:35 count him as one of the Chaldeans. So the guard knocks on his door. "Daniel," - 22:40 guard's name is Erioch - "Daniel." "What is it, Erioch?" "We gotta go." "But it's two in 22:46 the morning, Erioch." "I know. We gotta go." "What's the problem?" "Well, the king had a 22:49 dream." "Well, he has dreams all the time." "No, no, this was different. He won't tell 22:53 anybody what he dreamt. And when the senior Chaldeans couldn't tell him what he dreamt, he got 22:57 mad, and I'm afraid I have bad news for you." "What's the bad news?" "Well, we have to chop 23:01 you in pieces." "Just a minute," said Daniel. "I got an idea. Take me to Nebuchadnezzar." 23:13 Verse 16. "So Daniel went in and asked the king to give him time, that he might tell the 23:17 king the interpretation." He asks for time. Now, don't forget, the Chaldeans were 23:23 stalling too, but the king wouldn't give them time. For some reason, though, he trusts 23:28 this young man from Jerusalem because Daniel - as you read your way through the book of 23:33 Daniel, you discover, he has sterling character. Daniel is the kind of person who never 23:39 gives you cause for doubt. He always stands on principle. And Nebuchadnezzar recognizes that 23:44 in this young man, and he gives him time, something he wouldn't give his senior advisors. And 23:48 that tells me something. Building character with your life matters. You can cheat and 23:55 lie your way through life. You can take shortcuts your entire life, but it will catch up with 24:00 you. It'll destroy you in the end. But let me tell you, especially young people, 24:04 character lasts your whole life. Your whole life. The king gives him what he wouldn't give the 24:12 others: he gives him time. So Daniel makes the best use of his time. He goes and gets three of 24:17 his friends. You heard about them when you were a little kid. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. 24:23 Those are their Babylonian names. He doesn't consult the star charts that night. Mm-mm. 24:29 Daniel doesn't get out the astrological charts. He doesn't cut open a goat and dump out its 24:33 entrails and read it like the other Chaldeans would. He doesn't go for a séance or the 24:38 600 B.C. equivalent of a ouija board, whatever that would've been. Daniel does something that 24:45 our ancestors used to do a lot of: he got on his knees and he prayed. Got his friends together 24:52 and he prayed all night. And the Bible tells us, he actually got an answer that night. He was 24:57 shown what the king had dreamed. So they take him back to the king, in verse 27. "Daniel 25:02 answered in the presence of the king and said, 'The secret which the king has demanded, the wise 25:09 men, the astrologers, the magicians and the soothsayers cannot declare to the king.'" He 25:16 was right; they couldn't do it. Let me tell you something: they still can't do it. They still 25:20 can't do it. They're still pulling the wool over our eyes. They still can't do it. Daniel 25:25 couldn't really do it either. He doesn't take a lick of credit for what's about to happen. 25:29 Here's what he says - pay attention. "'But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets.'" 25:38 Now, there's the answer to our first question, "Does God exist?" Daniel says yes, he 25:44 does. And he's about to prove it. I want you to follow carefully, because if, in your 25:52 lifetime, you have never heard God speak - in your lifetime, if you have never seen any evidence 25:57 of God in your life - that might just change for you tonight in ways you didn't expect. Follow 26:02 this very carefully. "There is a God in heaven who reveals secrets and He has made known to 26:09 king Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days." In the distant future, He has shown you 26:17 what's going to take place. Nobody can do that. The weather channel doesn't get it right 26:24 half the time. Nebuchadnezzar, God showed you the future of the world. Your dream and the 26:31 visions of your head upon your bed were these. Watch this carefully. "You, O king, were 26:37 watching." He's describing the dream now. "You, O king, were watching; and behold, a great 26:41 image! [A giant statue.] This great image whose splendour was excellent, stood before you; and 26:47 its form was awesome. [It was huge.] This image's head was made of fine gold." What was the 26:52 head made out of, folks? No, there's more of you out there than that; I can hear you 26:56 breathing. What was the head made out of? Gold. Its chest and arms were made of? Silver. This 27:03 is all important. It's all going to show up in other Bible prophecies. Pay attention 27:07 carefully. Its belly and thighs were made of what? Bronze. Its legs were made of? Iron. Its 27:14 feet, partly of iron and partly of clay. You saw a giant statue, head of gold, chest of silver, 27:21 belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, feet made of iron and clay, but that's not all you 27:27 saw. There was more. "You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck 27:32 the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces." You saw a stone fly 27:37 into the picture. It hit the feet of that statue and crushed the feet. Then the iron, the 27:43 clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together and became like chaff 27:48 from the summer threshing floors. You all know what chaff is in Minnesota, right? Yeah. 27:53 You talk about this in New York or Los Angeles, they haven't got a clue what it's talking about. 27:59 They've never seen a threshing floor in Los Angeles; they still think that all your food comes 28:03 from Safeway. This is being recorded. They're going to show it in Los Angeles. I'm never 28:08 going to be able to go back. But it's true. It hits the feet. "The feet are crushed and the 28:14 rest of the statue is crushed as well. It becomes like chaff from the summer threshing floor, and 28:19 the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found." The whole statue 28:23 collapses into powder on the ground and the wind blows all the residue away and there's 28:28 nothing left. "And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the 28:34 whole earth." In the court of Nebuchadnezzar, everybody's holding their breath. "Oh, I 28:44 hope he got it right. I hope he got something right 'cause I don't like this thing about 28:48 being chopped in pieces. I look better in one piece." Everybody's holding their 28:56 breath. Nebuchadnezzar leans forward in his seat. "Daniel, I don't know how you did that, but 29:08 that is exactly what I dreamt." "What in the world does it mean?" Now it gets very 29:18 interesting. Daniel is about to explain it and we're going to get our first principle for 29:23 interpreting Bible prophecy and understanding it: read the whole story. It's a simple principle. 29:31 The Bible is its own best interpreter. That's really the principle. Read the whole thing. 29:37 And it always explains itself. You don't have to guess at what prophecy means. You don't have 29:41 to speculate, take a stab in the dark, because it always explains itself. God has no trouble 29:46 making Himself known. So many people read a story like this and they stop right after the 29:51 dream. They stop early. They don't read the rest and they start jumping to these wild 29:55 conclusions. "I've read all these books by all these people, oh, it's a head of gold. Gold, 30:01 there used to be gold in Fort Knox. We don't know if there's any there anymore, but that's 30:04 probably, then, the United States of America in Bible prophecy." "And silver, that's 30:09 the silver-haired wisdom of old folks. And bronze, that's something to do with coming in 30:13 third at the Sochi Winter Olympics." You're laughing, but there's books like that. They 30:20 put out a brand-new book, another one that doesn't make a lick of sense, because they 30:24 didn't read the whole thing. You don't have to guess. You don't have to speculate. The Bible 30:30 explains itself. Daniel's about to tell us exactly what it means. And this, what we're 30:37 about to look at, is what revolutionized the way I look at the world. Daniel 2:37, he 30:43 begins explaining the dream. "'You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has 30:50 given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory.'" The One Who gave you the dream, 30:55 Nebuchadnezzar, is the One Who gave you your whole empire. You really think your military 31:00 prowess made you this successful? You don't understand. 31:05 You would have none of this if God didn't allow it. A lot of people would be surprised one 31:10 day to discover one day that God had been there their whole lives giving them things they thought 31:14 they built. "'You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, 31:20 power, strength, and glory.'" He was a great king. "'Wherever the children of men dwell, or the 31:25 beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He [God] has given them into your hand, 31:30 and [He] has made you ruler over them all - you [Nebuchadnezzar] are this head of gold.'" There 31:39 is no guesswork involved. He just told him what the head of gold represents. You and this 31:44 empire that God has given you, Nebuchadnezzar, it's you. You are the head of gold. It's the 31:48 Neo-Babylonian empire, roughly from 605 B.C. to 539 B.C., and gold is the best description you 31:55 could come up with for the Babylonian empire. It really was the golden kingdom. It may have 32:01 been, may have been, the wealthiest empire in the history of the world. To this day, we 32:06 still use the word "Babylon" to symbolize decadence and over-the-top living. People who 32:13 visit it couldn't believe what they saw. The ancient historian Heronedus went to the ruins, and 32:18 in the ruins, he said, "This place was covered with gold, and there was gold furniture in the 32:23 temples. There was gold everywhere." It was remarkably wealthy. And it was remarkably 32:29 influential. Today, to some extent, you and I still think like Babylonians. It was that 32:34 influential. It's been 2,600 years and we still think like those folks in some ways. They 32:41 didn't invent astrology, but they grabbed it from other cultures and popularized it and 32:45 passed it down to us. It's still in the horoscope column in your newspaper. Comes from Babylon. 32:49 They gave us base 60 mathematics. "Well, we don't use base 60 mathematics, Shawn. We 32:54 use base 10. We count to 10 and then we add a digit." You don't remember? Well, we count to 9 32:59 and then add a digit when we get to 10, and then when you get to 100, another digit, and 1000, 33:03 another. We use base 10. Yeah, for some math, you do. But you're still using base 60 33:08 because of the Babylonians. You are. How many seconds are there in a minute? Sixty. How many 33:15 minutes are there in an hour? Sixty. How many degrees in a circle? Three hundred - you told 33:20 your math teacher you'd never need it again, didn't you? Three hundred and sixty degrees. It 33:28 was a great empire. Left a stamp on the world. There's a reason every culture on the planet 33:32 still remembers Babylon to this day. But the question is simple: Did it last forever? No. 33:39 Does it still rule the world tonight? No. And that's the part of the dream that bothered the 33:43 king so much. Daniel continues, verse 39: "But after you will arise another kingdom inferior 33:51 to yours." Nebuchadnezzar, you won't last forever. There will be another kingdom. Oh, it won't 33:57 be as great as you - it will be inferior - but it will absolutely replace you. Daniel 34:04 was absolutely right. In 539 B.C., the Persians came into the city of Babylon under a general 34:11 by the name of Cyrus and they captured the city in one of the most breathtaking defeats of 34:16 military history. The chest of silver came and demolished the head of gold. I'll tell you on 34:23 Sunday night exactly how Cyrus pulled that off, because there's an element to that story that 34:27 actually helps you understand the book of Revelation. That story is woven through the way 34:32 John describes things in the book of Revelation. And on Sunday night, I'll show you how 34:37 the Bible predicted that a man by the name of Cyrus would conquer Babylon more than 100 34:42 years before Cyrus was born. How do you do that? Unless there's something more to the book than 34:49 human composition. The Persians took Babylon, the city that everybody knew was impossible to 34:55 take. And why were they able to take it? It's because world history is more than armies; 35:00 world history is more than economics. There is something else going on in the background. 35:05 There is somebody out there steering world events. The chest of silver defeats the head of 35:11 gold. Now, the question is, do the Persians still rule the world tonight? Do they? Yes or 35:16 no? Absolutely not. Some of you aren't sure. Do the Persians still rule the world tonight? 35:21 Yes or no? No, they don't. The prophecy continues, verse 39: "Then another, a third kingdom 35:28 of bronze, which shall rule over all -" Nebuchadnezzar, there's going to be a third kingdom 35:34 after the chest of silver. There'll be the belly and the thighs of brass. Now, students 35:40 of history, you tell me, who defeated the Persians in 331 at the battle of Arbela? Does 35:45 anybody know? Alexander the Great, absolutely. The Macedonian army, the Greeks, and 35:52 they established the next empire in the Mediterranean basin that runs from 331 B.C. to 168 B.C. 36:00 It was one of the fastest conquests in the history of the world. Alexander conquered two 36:06 million square miles, conquered twenty million people. He did it in four years flat on foot 36:11 before he was 32 years old. He marched his army all the way across the Mediterranean basin, 36:17 all the way over to India, and when he saw the ocean in India, history tells us, he actually 36:21 wept, because he thought he had run out of world to conquer. The soldiers said, "Well, if that's 36:28 the end of the world, could we go home?" He said, "Sure." They married a bunch of local girls 36:34 and started on their way back home. And on their way back home, they camped by the ruined 36:38 city of Babylon where Nebuchadnezzar had had that dream all those years before. 36:42 And Alexander, one night, as his men were partying, dies in the night. We're not 100% sure what 36:50 happened, but the most likely explanation is he drank himself to death. He choked on his own 36:55 vomit. Because while he could conquer the whole world, he couldn't conquer himself. Gone. 37:04 But Daniel was right: there was a third empire, the Greeks. Now, do the Greeks still rule the 37:10 world tonight? No. Their philosophy does. But their armies don't. There's another 37:17 empire. Verse 40: "And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks 37:22 in pieces and shatters everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break 37:26 in pieces and crush all others." Now, students of history tonight, you tell me, who 37:32 defeats the Greeks in 168 B.C. at the battle of Pydna? Who was it? It was the Romans. 37:38 Absolutely. It was the empire that was ruling the world the day Jesus was born in Bethlehem. 37:45 They're the empire that brought crucifixion into the New Testament era and they crucified 37:49 Jesus. They were a fierce, disciplined army that changed the face of our planet forever. 37:54 We may still think like Greeks, but you and I to this day still behave like Romans. Our legal 38:03 system, our politics, we inherited it all from them. I don't know if you've ever read 38:08 that big thick set of books, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. Did you 38:13 have to read that in school? It's like, seven volumes. It must be 5000 pages. Because in 38:18 the 1700s when he wrote that thing, he knew you only had enough money to buy one set of 38:23 books in your whole life, so he wrote everything he knew in that one set of books. And I read my 38:28 way through it because I had no choice if I wanted to pass. And Edward Gibbon did not really 38:34 believe in the Bible, but I found something interesting. As he's describing the rise of the 38:39 Roman empire, he describes it like this in the 1700s: "The images of gold," he wrote, 38:44 "silver, or brass, that might serve to represent the nations and their kings, were 38:48 successively broken by the iron monarchy of Rome." Ah, he said he didn't read the Bible, but 38:55 somebody's been reading Daniel chapter 2. End of the dream? Not quite; there's more. There are 39:03 feet. Daniel says: "Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of 39:08 iron, the kingdom shall be divided." Now, is that true of Rome? Yes, it is. Rome first 39:14 divided into east and west. By the time you come down to the time of Constantine and 39:19 Diocletian, there are actually four emperors: two in the east and two in the west. And then it 39:24 explodes to seven emperors. You've got Maxentius who has the senate declare him an emperor in 39:30 Rome, and it splits up even more. But it gets worse than that. It's not just the east and 39:35 west split; by 476 A.D., the west utterly collapses. And now the dream moves to the toes. It 39:44 says: "As the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be 39:50 partly strong and partly fragile." It mentions the toes at least twice in that chapter. 39:56 Now this dream shifts to the western Roman empire. Now, why does it focus on the western 40:03 half of the empire? You're going to see that on a coming night. It's going to show up in other 40:07 prophecies of the Bible. There's a deliberate reason that Daniel is focusing on the west. He now 40:12 mentions the toes. And we know that after 476 A.D., after the last western Roman emperor, the 40:18 empire broke up into pieces. General categories of barbarian tribes. And these are some of my 40:24 ancestors; I'm a direct descendent of barbarians. My ancestor probably ate your 40:29 ancestor at some point. We are the barbarians. Way up here in the north, we had the Anglos and 40:36 the Saxons. The Anglo-Saxons, which eventually became modern-day Britain. Then here in 40:41 this green zone, we have the Franks who expand a little bit further south, and they became 40:46 the French. Down in the orange, we've got the Visigoths. That means the western Goths. And 40:52 they were still living there in Spain by, oh, about 732 in the battle of Tours. They were still 40:57 living there. And the Goths had the region that eventually becomes Spain. Over where 41:02 there's Portugal, we had a tribe, a group of tribes, known as the Suevi. In the area where 41:07 Switzerland and Austria and some of those places are, we had the Burgundis. Way up north here, we 41:13 had the Alamanni, and they expanded north and became the nation of Germany. And to this 41:19 day, in some languages, we still call the Germans the Allemands or the Alamanni. Here, over 41:24 here, we had the Lombards. They eventually moved south down here into Italy and became the 41:30 Italian nation. And you still hear the word "lombard" around, right? You've heard of Vince 41:34 Lombardi? Right? He's a Lombard. He's from that region of the world originally. Then we have 41:40 the Ostrogoths, the eastern Goths. We have the Vandals down in North Africa. They were so 41:45 fierce, to this day, when somebody defaces your property, we call them a vandal. It breaks 41:55 into these ten categories, these ten groups, after the western Roman empire collapses. Now, 42:04 here's where it gets really good. What you're about to read has literally guided the course 42:09 of world history ever since Nebuchadnezzar dreamed it. It has determined exactly who wins 42:14 wars. It has determined exactly who sits on thrones. And it proves beyond the shadow of a 42:20 doubt that somebody or something is guiding human history. God is about to speak. Here's what it 42:27 says in verse 41: "As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed 42:35 of men." They will intermarry. "But they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not 42:44 mix with clay." What's Daniel saying? He's saying the western empire would fragment into 42:51 pieces and that they would try and put it back together. They would intermarry, they would try 42:54 to mingle, they would try to put it back together, but they will not adhere to one another. They 43:00 will never succeed in reuniting the western Roman empire. Period. And history tells us 43:06 now, 2,600 years later, that Daniel was absolutely right. Let's go back. Let's look at 43:12 European history. You told your history teacher you would never need this stuff either, but here 43:16 it is. When Queen Victoria was on the throne of England, she was called - her nickname was - 43:23 the Grand Mother of Europe. Do you know why they called her that? It's because for so many 43:27 years, the royal families of Europe had tried to marry their kids to each other, trying to 43:32 build alliances and reunite the western Roman empire. And because of that, by the time 43:38 Queen Victoria's on the throne of England in the late 1800s, she is literally related to 43:43 every single other head of state. They're all relatives. They were literally mingling the 43:50 seed of men. "Oh, we can do it. We can put it back together." But it didn't work. In fact, the 43:55 20th century, after Queen Victoria, proves to be the bloodiest century in the history 44:01 of Europe. World War I, World War II. We are still living with the borders that were drawn 44:06 after that. But let's go back further in time. There are a lot of big names we could mention, 44:12 but I only have a few minutes left, so I'm just going to touch on a few of the biggest ones. 44:16 Charlemagne, king of the Franks, 768 onward, becomes the king of Italy in 774, but in 800, 44:23 something big happens: they name him the holy Roman emperor. Here's the new emperor of 44:29 western Rome, the first one since it collapsed. They called him the father of Europe. They 44:35 said he would bring lasting peace. But did it succeed? Almost. He went up north, he 44:41 attacked the Saxons, he attacked the Germans. He went all the way up to Denmark and he was 44:44 starting to pull it together, and then he thought, "I'm getting old. Who am I going to 44:49 pass the empire on to? I'll give it to my sons." But his sons died before he did, and he goes, 44:54 "Oh, now who am I going to give the empire to? I'll give it to my grandson, but he's so young. 44:59 I've got another grandson nobody knows about." That's literally how this happened. "I've got 45:04 another grandson nobody knows about out there in the field." He gets another grandson, and he 45:08 dies and passes it on to these young men who can't run it, and Europe goes back to war. Why? 45:16 'Cause Charlemagne is not clever enough? Sure he was. Why didn't it succeed? Because God said, 45:21 "They will not adhere to one another," and if God says it, you're not going to overturn it. 45:25 You can't defeat it. About 700 years later, we have another holy Roman emperor, Charles V, 45:31 1519 he's elected. People were desperate for unity in the 1500s. Germany was split. The 45:37 reformation was going on. The princes were fighting with each other. He manages to expand his 45:41 empire to four million square kilometres, and he almost does it, and then all of a sudden, 45:46 Charles V gets gout. Oh, you say, "Gout, no big deal." No, he can't go to war anymore, he 45:52 can't lead his troops. He's limping around, "I wish I could go. I've got gout." And if that 45:56 wasn't bad enough, then he gets malaria and he dies. Why didn't he pull it off? Because he's not 46:02 a great warrior? Yes, he was, had five horses killed underneath him in battle. He was 46:07 great, but he couldn't do it because God said, "They will not adhere to one another," and if 46:11 God says it, you're not going to change it. Louis XIV, he's the sun king, king of France. He was 46:17 so arrogant, he didn't say, "I run the state," he said, "I am the state." Under him, France 46:23 becomes the greatest military power in all of Europe. I know that young audiences, they say, 46:29 "France was the greatest military power in Europe?" Because everybody jokes, "Oh, 46:32 the French always wave the flag of surrender." That wasn't true in the 1700s. The greatest 46:36 military power in Europe. The conditions were right to reunite the empire. And then all of a 46:42 sudden, Louis XIV makes a bad decision: he tries to force Spain and France back together 46:47 artificially and it starts a war that gets out of control. The Wars of Spanish Succession, 1701 46:53 onward. He sends all of his tallest, biggest men into that battle, and so many of his 46:58 tallest, biggest men die on the battlefield, that I've seen historians who estimate that 47:03 today, the French population is still two inches shorter than they used to be because so many 47:08 of the tall people died off. Why couldn't he do it? Well, I know one reason he couldn't do it: he 47:16 wore high heels. You can't go into battle in high heels. You're going to get a heel stuck 47:21 in the mud or something. You can't fight like that. You know the real reason he couldn't do 47:26 it. God said, "They will not adhere to one another." Now we come to Napoleon. He's not a 47:32 king; he's a general. He marches all over Europe and he's getting close. He almost pulls it off, 47:37 but he's also arrogant. He gets full of himself. And there comes a day he wants to crown himself 47:42 the emperor of Europe, and the pope shows up to put the crown on his head, he says, "I'll 47:46 handle that myself," takes the crown, and puts it on his own head. "I'll declare myself the 47:50 emperor of Europe." Word goes back to a man by the name of Ferdinand Ries. He's Beethoven's 47:58 secretary. He says, "Mr. Beethoven, we have a problem." "That symphony you're writing, 48:03 that you're dedicating to Napoleon Bonaparte? He just declared himself the emperor of 48:08 Europe." Beethoven was crushed. He said, "I thought he was going to bring liberty to all of 48:16 Europe." Here's what he said. "So he [Napoleon] is no more than a common mortal! Now, too, 48:22 he will tread under foot all the rights of Man, indulge only his own ambition; now he will think 48:27 himself superior to all men and become a tyrant." He rips the front page out of that symphony. 48:35 We almost lost it. There's still a copy in a museum in Vienna, a second copy that has Napoleon's 48:39 name on it, but Beethoven scratched his name out. Napoleon failed. When Napoleon died in 48:47 misery, Beethoven told everybody, "I've already written his funeral." It's the piece 48:51 that you heard at the beginning of this evening. Napoleon, the terror of Europe, almost does 48:58 it, but then he goes into Europe with 600,000 men and loses most of them. Then he goes into 49:02 exile. He comes back out and goes to Waterloo. You know what happened at Waterloo: he loses. 49:07 So he's exiled a second time to Saint Helena and he dies miserable and alone and 49:11 friendless. Why? Because he wasn't smart enough? Sure, he was. He failed because Daniel 49:17 said, "They will not adhere to one another." Kaiser Wilhelm, World War I, 20th century now. 49:25 England is actually losing World War I, and they panic and they contact America. They say to 49:29 Woodrow Wilson, "We need your help. You've got to come over. We're losing to the kaiser." 49:33 And Woodrow Wilson said, "Not my problem, not my war. I'm not coming." Germany gets wind that 49:39 England is talking to America and they say, "We've got to do something to keep America busy 49:42 in case they get interested." So they fire off a telegram to the president of Mexico. It's known 49:47 as the Zimmerman telegram. It was encoded. And the telegram said, "Listen, if you invade 49:52 America, if you take back New Mexico and Texas and Arizona, we'll send you money and 49:56 ammunition, and we'll help you win. You join us," said the kaiser. Somehow, Britain 50:03 intercepts that telegram, and somehow they manage to decode it. And they call up Woodrow 50:08 Wilson again and they say, "Guess what happened with the kaiser? He's trying to invade 50:11 you through Mexico." And Woodrow Wilson gets so mad, he joins the battle and the kaiser loses the 50:16 war. Coincidence? Not a chance. "They will not adhere to one another." There's a young 50:24 soldier in the kaiser's army. His name is Adolf Hitler. In 1918 he says, "I'll finish what 50:29 Napoleon started. I can't handle the defeat of Germany. I will build an empire that lasts a 50:34 thousand years." He called it a Reich. I believe that Hitler knew he was defying God, too. In 50:42 1941 he wrote this: "See my people? We do not need anything from God. We do not ask Him for 50:47 anything except that He may let us alone; we want to fight our own war with our own guns, 50:52 without God. We want to gain our victory without the help of God." Dies in a bunker. Why? 51:01 Lots of reasons, but the number one reason, "they will not adhere to one another." Soviet 51:10 Union tried it. At one point, they controlled one-third of the earth's geography. One-third of 51:15 it. And they kept bumping up against eastern Europe and never made any further progress. Why? 51:20 "They will not adhere to one another." They're still trying it now. The newest attempt has 51:25 been the European Economic Union, but they're having all kinds of problems. Have you been 51:29 paying attention? The first flag they flew had ten stars on it. Why? 'Cause they were going to 51:33 reunite the ten fragments of the western Roman empire, but it didn't work out, did it? Some 51:38 nations won't join the alliance. Others aren't allowed to join. Some countries can't keep their 51:42 debt under control. Greece goes bankrupt. Portugal is following quickly behind. Some other 51:47 countries are also in trouble. And I'm telling you, they might work out some kind of economic 51:51 alliance. It's falling apart before our eyes. But they still might salvage an economic 51:55 alliance, but I'll tell you one thing I know for sure based on 2,600 years of accuracy in God's 52:01 Word: they will not reunite the political western Roman empire It can't be done because God 52:09 says it can't. He's never wrong. Now, does that mean that there'll never be another world 52:19 empire? Does that mean there'll never be a new world order? Sure, there will. 'Cause the 52:25 Bible actually says one more thing. There's still the stone that crushes the statue. Verse 52:32 44. Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar, "In the days of these kings-" We're in the ten 52:37 toes now. "In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall 52:45 never be destroyed. And the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in 52:51 pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." There is one more 53:04 kingdom coming. It's different. It's incorruptible. It'll never need to be replaced because 53:12 human beings don't set this one up; God does. And when does that happen? Jesus drops a little 53:22 hint in the prophetic chapter, the 25th chapter of Matthew. He says this: "When the Son of Man 53:30 comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His 53:37 glory." Everything in Daniel 2, except for this, has already happened. It's all in the past, 53:52 except for this. Is there a direction to world history? You better believe it. History means 54:01 something, and it's headed somewhere. The question is, what are you banking on for your 54:11 future? Everything Nebuchadnezzar built, gone. Everything Cyrus the Persian 54:19 built, gone. Everything Alexander built, gone. Everything the Romans built, 54:23 gone. Everything I build, goes. Everything you build, goes. It all goes. It all blows away in 54:36 the wind and God sets up His kingdom. What are you banking on for tomorrow? I look at my life, 54:43 I know there's got to be something better than this. There's gotta be something 54:48 better than this. I remember being overseas one time away from my family, and I got sick. 54:55 They say it was the swine flu. Remember the swine flu? Tried to avoid it, but when you're on an 55:00 airplane sitting next to somebody with the swine flu for eight hours, sometimes you get 55:04 it. And I'm sitting on the other side of the planet, 13,000 miles from home, and I got sick and I 55:12 have a fever and I'm shivering. And I don't speak the local language. And I go out in the 55:17 streets - it's pouring rain - and I find a pharmacy and I can't talk to the pharmacist. I 55:20 can't even get aspirin. And I got back to the little miserable room that I was staying in and I 55:26 sat on the mattress that was as hard as concrete and I sat there shivering, miserable. And the 55:35 whole time I sat there, I thought, "But I've got a home somewhere else. I got a wife. I 55:44 got kids. I got a warm bed somewhere." I have never felt so homesick in my life. It's 55:58 horrible. The hotel's noisy, you can't sleep. Homesick. Eventually, the fever broke. I 56:08 went home and I got over it. But I can tell you, I'm still homesick. Because this whole 56:16 planet is sick and shivering. Look around you. For most of the planet, it's a miserable 56:24 existence and God has seen it. And He says, "I've let you run your experiment for a while, but 56:31 I've got something better coming." "I will blow away the kingdoms of this world." Look at 56:38 the planet. North Korea's still acting up. China redrawing portions of the ocean. Crimea in 56:46 a virtual state of war all the time. Middle East rising up again. The Bible tells me that 56:55 God sees it and He's going to put a stop to it. Let me ask you, are you homesick? Would you 57:10 like something a little better than what we've got? Everything has happened, and Jesus really 57:19 is coming. 57:25 If you're so inclined, please join me while I pray. Father in heaven, what great news to find 57:32 out You're bringing us somewhere and that our planet is not spiralling out of control, that 57:44 there's a purpose and direction and that you have a plan. We want to be there. We're homesick 57:52 for that kingdom. And my prayer tonight is, come quickly, Jesus, for we ask it in Jesus' name, 57:59 amen. 58:03 Today you have watched just one in a series of "Revelation Speaks Peace" presentations. 58:08 The entire series is available on DVD. Find out how you can order a copy at www.vop.com/rsp 58:16 Or Call.. 877-955-2525 Or if you wish you may request the series by writing to Voice of Prophecy 58:25 PO Box 999 Loveland, CO 80539 You can also find answers to life's toughest questions, by 58:35 ordering Voice of Prophecy's free Discover Bible Guides. Where is God when you 58:40 suffer? Does your life really matter? How does Bible prophecy affect my life? The Discover 58:46 Bible guides will help you find answers to these question in the Bible We'll take you step by 58:53 step to what you care about most. Study online, or have us send them strait to your mail 58:59 box. To order your DVD set or Discover Bible Guides go to www.vop.com/rsp, again that's 59:07 www.vop.com/rsp or call 877-955-2525. You may also send us a request by mail to: Voice 59:17 of Prophecy PO Box 999 Loveland, CO 80539 |
Revised 2016-07-12