Lesson 9 Daniel 7 part 2

[0:00] Y'all come on in. I'd forgotten to start the record button. Oh, wow. It's a good chance to start over. I know. I've got to start over anyway. By the way, there's sheets right there for the notes if you want to have the notes.

[0:17] All right. So anyway, this is where we were last time. We walked through and just talked about the four different kingdoms that were going to happen throughout history. Babylon, the Medo-Persian, Greece, and Rome.

[0:30] And since then, was there anything that popped into your mind about anything from last week before we dive on in to this week? It's been two weeks ago, right?

[0:43] It has been two weeks ago. I was thinking, wow, I didn't know we met last week. Yeah, I think y'all were in school board. No, we didn't meet. No, no, no.

[0:53] Last week I was like, oh. Yeah, that was Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, then school board before that. Yeah. Okay. So then, you did not see this. It's up on the website, so you can go listen to it if you want to.

[1:06] I'll just watch it. Yeah. You can't watch it. It's just audio. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well then, let's take, and we're going to, this yellow box is this fifth kingdom.

[1:19] It's what I call the fifth kingdom. And the fifth kingdom is the stone to mountain in chapter two and the son of man in chapter seven. And that's really what we're going to focus in on and look at today.

[1:32] Okay. So let me read for us, though, from Daniel 7, beginning of verse nine. It says this. It says this. I kept looking until thrones were set up. And the ancient days took his seat.

[1:43] His vesture was like white snow and the hair of his head like pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames. Its wheels were a burning fire.

[1:55] A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands were attending him. And myriads upon myriads were standing before him. The court sat and the books were opened.

[2:09] Then I kept looking because of the sound of the boastful words which the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and his body was destroyed and given to the burning fire.

[2:20] As for the rest of the beast, their dominion was taken away. But an extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time. I kept looking in the night visions. And behold, with the cloud of heaven, one like a son of man was coming.

[2:34] And he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom. That all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him.

[2:46] His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away. And his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. So, in this fifth kingdom, I have put on your note sheet kind of a chart just to help you kind of keep up with me here.

[3:04] There are similarities between chapter 2 and chapter 7. I see consternation. Are we supposed to have those blanks filled in already?

[3:16] Those middle ones? Get us the review. I mean, you should be able to get that pretty quickly. I'm just asking where we are. I don't think he's filling in. Nobody's got their blanks filled in. Okay.

[3:26] Well, you can fill in your blanks. You blank fillers. Those of you who are blank fillers. Fill in. I see incomplete. Everything has to be filled in.

[3:37] You can copy this. That's what that chart is. The bottom one, just leave it blank. Or you can put fifth kingdom. No, no, no. You're not finding the kitchen. Up here. Fill right in. The second chart is what I'm about to go over.

[3:49] That's why I was asking. I won't wait long enough for you to fill out your chart. Okay. Are we good? Second chart.

[4:00] Second chart. I think we're ready. Okay. That's fine. That's fine. All right. So what I've given you is basically these are the similarities between chapter 2 and chapter 7 about the fifth kingdom.

[4:13] So I'm just going to expand all of this into this other chart that you've got, right? And these similarities come out in these four ways. That God sets up this kingdom. It starts small but grows big.

[4:25] It destroys the fourth kingdom. And once it's established, it never ends. Okay. So we want to look and see those things in both chapter 2 and in chapter 7. We're going to start with chapter 2.

[4:37] And as we go, you'll begin to see the verses that you can write down. And there may be a few notes I'll tell you to write down as we go. So the fifth kingdom, we start in Daniel chapter 2, verse 44. And in Daniel chapter 2, verse 44, it says this.

[4:50] In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed. And that kingdom will not be left for another people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms.

[5:02] But it will itself endure forever. So in Daniel 2, it's verse 44 where we see that this kingdom is set up by God.

[5:12] Now, let's remember just for a second Daniel 2. Just to kind of remember what happened in Daniel 2. Daniel 2 was a dream Nebuchadnezzar had. The dream was of a statue.

[5:23] The statue had a gold head, silver arms and chest, bronze belly and thighs, and iron legs and iron clay feet. Right?

[5:34] So it represented the different kingdoms. The head of gold was Babylon. That's Nebuchadnezzar. The chest, silver, Medo-Persian, this kind of thing. So as he's talking about this kingdom in verse 44, there's a stone that gets cut out.

[5:49] Right? And destroys the statue on the feet. That's what verse 44 is talking about. That in the days of those kings, those kings of the iron feet, God will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed.

[6:03] So Daniel 2 tells us God sets this kingdom up. That's just all we're looking at in that right there. Then the second statement is that it starts small and grows big.

[6:15] So now we'll go to verse 35. So you can write that down there in verse 35. Right? Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors.

[6:29] And the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was to be found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

[6:40] So in the vision, what he saw was the statue and a stone hitting the statue and it destroying all the kingdoms of men. And then that stone, that little stone growing into this big mountain.

[6:52] And what that represents, what it tells us is that this is this fifth kingdom is a kingdom set up by God and it's going to destroy the other kingdoms. It will live forever. It's going to encompass the whole world.

[7:03] So that's the idea that it starts small, but it grows big. And the small part of it is the stone and the large part of it or the big part of it is the mountain.

[7:14] Does that make sense? Okay. I think all of this will start to coalesce in your brain as we get into chapter 7 and start seeing some things there. The third statement is that this fifth kingdom destroys the fourth kingdom.

[7:34] Okay. The fifth kingdom destroys the fourth kingdom. And we see that in verse 34. We also saw it in verse 35. You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands and it struck the statue on its feet of iron clay and crushed them.

[7:50] In verse 35, then the iron, the bronze, the silver, the gold were all crushed at the same time. Like a threshing floor, the wind carries it away. So you get this destruction of the kingdoms of men.

[8:02] So just think about this for a second. Okay. So what's happening in chapter 2? The Jews, they're in Babylon. They're in captivity.

[8:14] They're in exile away from the land. They're not at home anymore. Nebuchadnezzar is shown the flow of history that's going to happen from his time forward because the Jews, the whole reason Daniel's writing this, is that they're in captivity and they need to be comforted.

[8:33] Right? That's what apocalyptic literature is for. It's to comfort those in oppression. And so he's showing them the flow of history and how these kingdoms of men are going to be destroyed when God sets up his own kingdom.

[8:48] Okay? But it starts small. It grows big. But it does destroy the kingdoms of men. The fourth statement then is that once it is established, it will not end.

[9:01] It doesn't have an end point. It goes on and on forever. And we see that in several verses, but particularly I'm looking at verse 44 again. God's going to set up this kingdom which will never be destroyed.

[9:14] It will not be left for another people. That's the part of, like Babylon, right? So when the Persians come in and take over Babylon, they don't have to start from the ground up and build new buildings.

[9:25] They just take over the buildings, right? They just take over the infrastructure. That's what happens in Daniel chapter 6, right? Daniel chapter 6 in Daniel the lion's den. It starts with Darius taking all of these leaders who were the leaders in the Babylonian government like Daniel and placing them kind of in his own structure, right?

[9:45] So they take over somebody else's kingdom. God's kingdom is not something that anybody comes along and takes over as their own. Once it's established, it will not end.

[9:57] Okay? So there's those four statements out of Daniel 2. Let me pause and see. Is that clear? Does that make sense, what I'm saying? You may not understand the importance of it yet, but you kind of get it?

[10:11] Okay. Great. Now let's go to Daniel 7, okay? And instead of looking at the four metals or the four parts of the statue, we're looking at four beasts, right?

[10:24] And let's talk about these beasts for just a second. Tell me what these beasts are. They're what? One's an eagle, lion, hybrid. One's a bear.

[10:35] One's a leopard. And one's a... Man. Monstrosity. We don't even know what it is, right? It's got how many heads? Four. Does it have four heads?

[10:47] No, no, no. That's the leopard. The leopard's got four heads. It's got ten horns. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And what we're saying is that the image of the statue and the four metals and the image of the four beasts, they represent the same kingdoms.

[11:09] That's why I showed you that chart at the beginning, right? That's why you filled in those blanks that I had you fill in, right? Because we have these four kingdoms. Okay. So, the same similarities that we just walked through, we're going to see them in chapter 7 now, okay?

[11:25] And the first one is that the kingdom is set up by God. Because the fifth kingdom is different in chapter 7 than the beasts. The fifth kingdom is the son of man, okay?

[11:37] So, let's start with verse 14. Verse 14 tells us, And to him, this is the son of man, was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples of the nations of men of every language might serve him.

[11:53] His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. Now, it doesn't say, God set this up, but what it does say is that to him was given dominion.

[12:04] Okay, so the ancient of days is given a kingdom, not the ancient of days, the son of man is given a kingdom. Who could give him that kingdom that's in the text?

[12:15] In the text, it's just the ancient of days. So, it's God who sets up this kingdom, okay? Then, we get to the second statement. It starts small and grows big.

[12:27] I get this from verse 13 and 14. Here's the full scope of this. I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming.

[12:39] And he came up to the ancient of days, and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve him.

[12:54] And his dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. Now, I'm saying that this starts small, but grows big, because what you have throughout this chapter, and I don't think I've put these verses on the slide, but just to give you the sense of it, is that this kingdom is one man.

[13:17] Okay, think of it like that. It's the son of man. The kingdom is given to him. He is this kingdom. But it becomes nations. Okay, so it's small as one man, a son of man.

[13:30] It grows big because it's many men, or it's many people. It's the nations. Okay? And throughout here, one of the things that happens in the text is it talks about how the kingdom is given to the people.

[13:43] So, for example, verse 18, but the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever and ever and ever.

[14:01] So, you got the son of man who gets the kingdom, but then you have the people of God. So, it's this starting small, growing big. Okay? That's sort of the thing that we saw in chapter 2.

[14:13] We're seeing it here in chapter 7. Okay? Does that make sense? Okay. Great. So, then let's talk about the third point.

[14:29] Maybe I should say something here. So, about the son of man.

[14:39] Let's talk about the son of man for just a second. We'll talk about him in more detail next week. But let me just give this sort of summary. This son of man ultimately is Christ.

[14:54] It's Jesus. And I think we all see that. But he's serving in this text. He's serving kind of as a representative and not just solely as Jesus' person.

[15:05] Right? He's the representative of all of his people. And the other thing is that with all of these other kingdoms, what we've seen is like a lion, like a bear, like a leopard, and now we see one like a son of man.

[15:22] And the reason for that is that the kingdoms of men, they're beastly. Without God, they're beastly kingdoms. Cruel, brutal, murderous.

[15:35] This is what it's like to be without Christ. But one like the son of man is different. So, that's just kind of a part of there that I think is important.

[15:45] So, I just didn't have that here. All right. Third statement is that it destroys the fourth kingdom. So, when the son of man comes, he gets his kingdom. This kingdom, because of its coming, destroys the fourth kingdom.

[15:59] The fourth kingdom is the monstrous beast with the ten horns and then the little horn. So, we get this a couple of places. 7, verse 9 through 12.

[16:10] Let's read that first. I kept looking until thrones were set up and the Ancient of Days took a seat and his vesture was white as snow. His hair of his head was pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames.

[16:22] Its wheels were burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands were attending him and myriads were standing before him.

[16:32] The court sat and the books were opened. Then I kept looking because the sound of the boastful words which the horn was speaking and I kept looking until the beast was slain and his body was destroyed and given to the burning fire.

[16:47] As for the rest of the beast, their dominion was taken away, but an extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time. As the Ancient of Days is here and as the Son of Man is going to come up to him in verse 13 and 14 and this kingdom is given, judgment is had at that point.

[17:07] So, you have judgment happening at the same time that the kingdom is being given to the Son of Man. So, that's why I'm saying that the Son of Man, his coming and his kingdom is a destruction of the fourth kingdom.

[17:19] But we see this also in verse 22. Until the Ancient of Days came and judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the highest one and the time arrived when the saints took possession of the kingdom.

[17:32] So, in other words, when the Ancient of Days comes in his judgment, the saints take possession of the kingdom. Again, this fifth kingdom being possessed by the Son of Man and his people happens as judgment takes place upon the fourth kingdom, upon the little horn, on the boastful horn.

[17:49] And we see it again in verse 26. But the court will sit for judgment and his dominion will be taken away and annihilated and destroyed forever. Then the final statement is that once it is established, it will not end.

[18:05] That's verse 14. Right? You can see that pretty clearly there. It's a kingdom which will not pass away and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

[18:18] Okay, that's a lot of data. A lot of data. I'm going to draw some conclusions from that data. But before I draw conclusions to understand the data of everything we just said.

[18:29] Maybe not all the details. Maybe there's questions you go like, but who is this and who is that? Remember, what we do is we try to understand the vision first before we start trying to say what's what. Any questions?

[18:42] Clear as mine? Okay. So here's some conclusions then. The first is this. The kingdom of God, based on what we're saying here, the kingdom of God was established when Christ ascended back to his father.

[18:57] This fifth kingdom was established when Jesus ascended back to his father. I get that from a few things. One, I get it from the idea of the destruction of the Roman Empire or the stone striking the Roman Empire, the iron legs.

[19:13] I get that also from the idea of the clouds, right? The son of man is coming on the clouds of heaven. One like the son of man. So he comes on clouds towards the ancient of days.

[19:28] Now why is it important that he's coming on clouds? What do you know about Jesus and clouds? It does represent judgment. It represents that he's the judge. But what else?

[19:39] Then he go up in a cloud. Yeah. Acts chapter 1. Verse 9. And after he said these things, he was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received him out of their sight.

[19:51] And as they were gazing intently into the sky while he was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking in the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in just the same way as you have watched him go into heaven.

[20:08] The New Testament teaches us that when Christ was finished here upon earth, he ascended back to his father, right? He's still fully God, fully man, glorified human body.

[20:21] And now he is ascending back to his father. And he ascends in a cloud. And you get this image there in Daniel of this one like the son of man, one like a human, coming before the ancient of days because he's arrived on a cloud.

[20:35] And so that's a point at which I would say that this kingdom, this fifth kingdom gets set up because one of the things that happens in the ascension of Jesus, and I could point to a lot of different verses.

[20:50] I'll just give you one, is that at his ascension, when he goes to the father, it says that he sits down at the right hand of the majesty on high, right?

[21:01] First Peter says, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who's at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven after angels and authorities and powers have been subjected to him.

[21:13] In other words, he's at the right hand having gone into heaven. That's where he is. So he's ruling and reigning. So he received the kingdom and is ruling and reigning right there at his ascension.

[21:29] So then from Daniel 7, the point that the Jews are looking at. Okay, let's go back to the Jews for just a second. As Daniel wrote this to encourage them, they see one like a son of man, one whose kingdom is not beastly in nature, one who has the ability to stand before the ancient of days, will come and sit at his right hand and once his kingdom is established, it will be forever.

[21:58] And so for the Jews sitting there in exile wondering, is this ever going to end? Is this ever going to end? They can see there's coming an end. There's coming a promise.

[22:10] And they're familiar with that. They're familiar with Abraham getting promises and it taking forever for it to be fulfilled. I mean, there are promises to Abraham that didn't get fulfilled in his lifetime, right? It was later.

[22:20] So they see this and it becomes encouraging to them. The second conclusion I would make is that the kingdom of God, once it's established, will grow, right?

[22:32] So it starts small and it grows large. That's what we saw, the son of man becoming a nation. And it's interesting to me that one of the passages we see in the New Testament, in Revelation chapter 5, they sang a new song saying, You know, just that image of look how big it has become.

[23:09] Look how massive it's become. And even, I think, did I include this passage? Ah, deleted that passage somehow. Okay. We have to go to this passage.

[23:23] Matthew 13. There are parables that Jesus tells about the kingdom of God.

[23:39] And the one that I think is pretty interesting is the one about the mustard seed. And it says, He put another parable before them saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.

[23:57] It's the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown, it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make their nest in the branches.

[24:08] Okay. So, he tells that parable, right? He explains it to them a little bit later. Let's see. Where is it? Maybe he doesn't explain that one.

[24:20] But you get the picture. You get the picture that the kingdom of God starts off as a mustard seed and becomes this huge tree. It's the same image that we're seeing in Daniel. That's what the kingdom of God does. And it does it.

[24:31] It does it in or at the ascension of Jesus. So, the Jews in Daniel's day, history for them is divided into this idea that at one time we were under the kingdom of God.

[24:44] Then, when Israel and when Judah sinned and were taken into captivity, it's as though that came to an end at the time of men or the time of the Gentiles had come.

[24:55] And now, empire after empire, kingdom after kingdom is going to rule. And the next period they're looking for is they're looking for the Messiah to come so that the kingdom gets set up. It's a kingdom that will explode with growth, right?

[25:10] It will grow big. And you think about the history of the church. There was a massive amount of people who got saved at that time. You know, I know a lot of times we look at the day of Pentecost and we think to ourselves, 3,000 in one day.

[25:25] Why don't we have that here? It's like, well, maybe we're not in the same kind of time period. You know? Like, the kingdom grows. And also, maybe because we're in America and not some other country. Like, you know, there's reasons. But my point is, is that there are going to be people from every tribe, nation, language, and tongue.

[25:41] And that's how, that's when we talk about the kingdom growing large. That's what we mean. And, you know, there are fewer unreached people groups today than there were 20 years ago.

[25:53] Did you know there's other countries sent in missionaries to the United States? That's right. You know, it's fascinating to chase that out and look at, like, countries like Africa.

[26:04] Like, countries in Africa, there are people who are sending missionaries not just to the United States but other parts of the country. You know? We've talked to some of our missionary friends and it's interesting to see.

[26:14] I had some friends that were in China for a while. Now they're in Taiwan. And the way that many Taiwanese would try to go into China as missionaries, you know, it's just all over.

[26:27] The kingdom will continue to grow. So our part of that, our part of that is to be mindful of the way God expands the kingdom is through the preaching of the gospel.

[26:39] You know? And that's what we, what's what we want to be about. We want to go and preach the gospel in all its fullness that Christ is king and you need to submit to him. And that's the third thing I would say is that the kingdom of God is victorious.

[26:50] You know, you can see this all through here. You've got the idea of the port sat. The beast is slain. All the kingdoms are given life by God's decree and God's charge.

[27:02] The son of man never loses his rulership. The saints will have the kingdom forever. Verse 19. Verse 27. Then the sovereignty, the dominion, the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole of heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the highest one.

[27:20] And his kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom. And all the dominions will serve and obey him. There's a lot of times that people, when they start talking about end times, will talk about how we lose down here.

[27:37] That is not the image and the picture that we see in scripture. Is it going to get bad? Is it going to get worse? Yes, I do think that's going to happen. But we don't lose down here.

[27:48] I mean, what did Jesus say about the church? The gates of hell shall what? Prevail for a little while, right? No. They shall not prevail. And so the idea that the church can lose, the idea that the church can fail in its mission, is not a part of scripture.

[28:08] We will be victorious. You know, we will do precisely what it is that God wants done. The church wins because Christ wins. Christ wins because he's king and lord of all.

[28:21] That's the thing that I think would be encouraging for the Jews, is they sit there and they think about where they are, and they read this, and they see these images, and begin to make connections. We've got more information than they had, but, you know, what an encouragement to know Christ wins.

[28:37] So let me pause there and see if you have any questions about this fifth kingdom. If you were to take a test right now about all of this, and think to yourself, I don't understand this part.

[28:53] Could you please explain this? What part do you not understand for the test? I think you did a good job explaining it, Mr. Owen. Yeah. Excellent.

[29:07] So if you said to somebody, the church will not fail in its mission, and they said, well, what about all these churches that have closed their doors? Right. What about, you know, like how do you answer back?

[29:20] So we have to understand the church in two levels. We have to understand that there's the universal church, and there's a local church. The universal church is the body of Christ. The local church is the body of Christ.

[29:31] We see the universal church in letters like Ephesians, where it talks about he's the head of the church. Christ is the head of the body, his church, and it talks about in a universal way.

[29:42] But then we have letters like 1 Corinthians, where he's writing directly to one church, and says, you are the body of Christ. Christ. So a local church may fail and close, but the church as a whole, and I would say the universal church, that will not fail.

[30:02] So that's the way I would say that. So yeah, I do think that a local church, and I'll go to Revelation, right? In the book of Revelation, you have these churches, and you have this warning by Christ that he will remove their lampstand, which I think means that he will close that local congregation, because they are not doing what they should.

[30:26] That's a good question. Whenever it talks about the stone destroying the fourth kingdom, that's Rome that's referring to it. Yeah, I mean, if we walk through and we see our pattern the way that seems to be in the way the flow of history, that would be at the time of Rome the kingdom of God is set up.

[30:47] What about all the kingdoms that arise after that? There really haven't been. Not a worldwide, right? That's been the last worldwide kingdom.

[30:57] What about like the England? I mean, they ruled all around the world. Yeah. But that's not mentioned as far as we know of anywhere?

[31:08] No. Or kingdoms like that? No, no. Because what's going to happen is that when we get to next week and we start talking about the little horn, we're going to begin to see things that begin to push out toward the end of time.

[31:22] Because I think that the little horn is like a historical figure, but also then represents, at the end, the Antichrist. Right? So there is something coming. But when you start thinking about the way these kingdoms work, you know, Britain was a kingdom, yes, but they were not like any of the others.

[31:40] Right? On a couple of levels. One, they were guided to some degree by some sense of, you know, Christian Judeo values, but also... Pagan. Right. They were not pagan like the others.

[31:51] And they were not, they were not the sole world dominating, they were constantly fighting against other people. You know? So, um... Yeah.

[32:02] At least that's the way I would see that. And I could be wrong. Absolutely. Whenever you talk about the gates of hell will not prevail, think about it. A gate is a defensive structure.

[32:15] Mm-hmm. So the church is on the offense. Right. So, um... You know, a gate does not come against a force. You know, the force comes against the gate.

[32:26] Yeah. I think it's a church as a, uh, offending force towards the gates of hell. Sure. Sure. Well, I want to talk about the Ancient of Days for a second.

[32:38] Okay? And just, just talk about who, who this is. I think we know who this is, but I want to, I want you to notice a few things about the Ancient of Days. And I think... Yeah.

[32:49] So, so just listen. I'm going to read this again, just this little bit about him. And I want you to think about kind of the, the different images used to describe him and the things about him that we can kind of pick up on.

[33:05] And, and let's see what we can understand about him. He says, I kept looking until thrones were set up and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His vesture was like white snow and the hair of his head like pure wool.

[33:17] His throne was ablaze with flames. Its wheels were burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands were attending him and myriads upon myriads were standing before him.

[33:30] The court sat and the books were opened. And then I kept looking because of the sound of the boastful words which the horn was speaking. I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body was destroyed and given to the burning fire.

[33:43] As for the rest of the beast, their dominion was taken away, but an extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time. And I kept looking in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming and he came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.

[34:00] And then to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples of the nations and men of every language might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.

[34:15] So, what are some things you notice about the Ancient of Days? The description of them. Yeah, give us some of that. What is... If you look in, you know, the Mount of Transfiguration and then also in Revelations, a lot of the descriptions are very similar to what the apostles saw.

[34:38] Yeah, I just wonder, like, what's the color? What color are we looking at? White. We're looking at white. What other images are we seeing? Purity means purity. We got some purity going on there with fire. We got fire.

[34:48] Urging. Fire, fire, fire. Yeah, so we got fire, we got whiteness, we got snow. Snow. I wonder what the wheels are, though. We're going to come to that in just a second. But there are wheels. It's interesting that there are...

[35:00] Why are there wheels? Why are there wheels? This is what I want to know. What's up with the wheels? Yeah, they saw the wheels. Yeah. So, going with what, you know, both of you said, you know, you got the purity and all these other descriptions, transfiguration, revelation.

[35:15] You know, white is that holiness, right? It is that purity and that holiness of God. His vesture, his hair, all white, right? And then his throne.

[35:26] His throne is burning. It's ablaze, and it has wheels that are burning. If a throne has wheels, what is it?

[35:39] Wheelchair. It's a chariot. Wheelchair. A wheelchair. Wheelchair. Wheelchair. That's where my brain went. I was like, a wheelchair on fire. A wheelchair on fire.

[35:51] But you're right. It is something that moves. That's the point. And here's what's interesting. God's chariot, God's chariot, God's royal throne chariot is a chariot of fire.

[36:05] Right? It was a chariot of fire that separated Elijah and Elisha. Right? Elisha is going to be following in Elijah's footsteps, and Elijah's going to be taken up to the Lord.

[36:16] So a chariot of fire comes and separates the two of them until Elijah's taken up in the whirlwind. But all of his hosts, they all have chariots of fire because Elisha is in the valley, and his helper is afraid because an army's coming to attack them.

[36:35] And he says, there's more with us than there are with them. And he asks the Lord to open his helper's eyes. And on the hills all around were chariots of fire all around. We get this in Psalm.

[36:48] The chariots of God are myriads. That's interesting. Thousands. And thousands upon thousands. And the Lord is among them as at Sinai in holiness. So at Sinai, what happened at Sinai?

[37:03] Ten commandments. Ten commandments. What did it look like at Sinai when the Ten Commandments are given? Blazing fire. Blazing fire, thunders, lightnings, it's judgment, it's scary, and the Lord is there in holiness.

[37:19] So you begin to see the connection of all these images together of this white and this, this, the chariots and the myriads and the thousands and the holiness and the fire.

[37:30] And here's, here's the thing. Why is God on a chariot? Because he is where his people are. He has moved from Jerusalem and the temple and he's come to Babylon and he's there ruling from this moving, mobile throne.

[37:51] There for his people. So, so as they're sitting there, God's not in some distant land away from them. As the, as the, as the, as the son comes to him, he's representing that he's mobile, that he's ready to, to come to them.

[38:03] And here's, here's the thing I think about this. This is all theology. Okay? The word theology, theos, is the word for God in Greek.

[38:15] Ology is the word for word or study. It actually comes from logos, word. So when you see ology at the end of something, it's the study of the other thing. So theology is the study of God.

[38:28] It's where we come to know God. And the way theology is done is that the Bible tells us something about God and I would say that these are God's words. So these are God's thoughts about himself.

[38:40] Like he tells us, he gives us this story about how to, how he interacted with somebody. He gives us this image of what he looks like in somebody's dream. he tells us something very direct.

[38:53] You know, like in the New Testament epistles, you know, where it says, like last week in the sermon or the week before, he's the firstborn overall creation. He just tells us something very directly.

[39:03] But all of these are God's thoughts. All of these are God's words. And when he tells us something or shows us something about himself, as we figure out and understand what that is, we are doing theology.

[39:15] We're learning theology. And it's interesting to me that part of what this image and this vision is in chapter 7 for the nation of Judah as they're in captivity is they're getting to see God.

[39:31] They're getting theology. They're learning something about God. They're seeing him in an exalted state. They're seeing that holiness. They're seeing that will, trying to figure out what that means.

[39:42] And they see the blazing fires. They see the destruction. They see the court set, the books open. All of that is theology. All of that is doctrine.

[39:53] All of that is stuff that they need to know. Truths about who God is. And what they need in this moment is a high view of God. They need that in the middle of what they're doing.

[40:05] I think about Moses. Moses sees the burning bush while he's shepherding sheep. He's in exile. He's on the run. He's away from where he should be.

[40:17] Isaiah. Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up. Right? In Isaiah 6 where he sees the train of his robe filled the temple and you've got the angels that are singing holy, holy, holy.

[40:28] But you know what happened? That Isaiah saw that? It was in the year that King Uzziah died. Right? It was a low moment. You've got to understand Uzziah was like this king that everybody thought might be the Messiah.

[40:44] He was popular. He was loved. And then God helped him the scriptures say until he became strong and he goes into the temple thinking that he can offer sacrifices and God strikes him with leprosy.

[40:58] So the epitaph on his tomb is Uzziah the leper. Right? So it's in that moment that Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up. It's Jacob. Right?

[41:08] It's Jacob who sees the Lord in the ladder. Right? He sees and gets this high view of God in this ladder and what is he doing? He's running from Esau because Esau wants to kill him.

[41:21] You know what I'm saying is that the times that we need a fixed high view of God our theology to be rich and deep are the most difficult points in life.

[41:34] That's you know in a moment like this when things are going smooth is when you need to study, study, study, study, study understand who God is and his word because when tragedy strikes when difficult strikes when suffering strikes it's hard to study but we need that high view ingrained in our minds so that we get our eyes put up on God and see him in the middle of this mess we're going through because there's no other way to get through it.

[42:03] It's what he's provided for his people and so we want to study God and want to learn more about him we want this theology to have this effect on us that it helps us get through these moments and I think that's what he's doing for the nation of Israel he's giving them this vision of himself he says that he's he's in charge I mean no matter what it looks like he's in charge and you're going to make it through it and I would just say that one of the best ways to learn theology is to read your Bible again and again and again and again and again be involved in Bible studies be involved in listening to sermons you know not just on Sunday morning but like we got the internet is full of lots of great sermons a lot of bad sermons too and if you need help navigating that I'll help you but like man there's some sermons that I've heard before in my life that like I have about five or six sermons I've heard in my life that every now and then I go find them and I listen to them again because they just they just feed your soul you know so anyway just wanted to give that to you just as a as a wrap up just to say you know get your eyes on the Lord get a good vision of who he is study theology read some theology books you know the new year's coming up you're going to have new year's resolutions read your Bible exercise read some theology books okay so yeah okay well let me let me pray for us and then we can take a few questions