PRECEPTS FOR LIFE
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Precept Ministries International
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The following is an actual transcript of the PRECEPTS FOR LIFE Broadcast. For the purpose of filling transcript requests quickly, they have received only light editing. If you have questions concerning the material covered in this broadcast, Kay has published a number of books explaining the Scripture in depth. These books may be ordered by contacting the telephone number or address printed above.
“My Judge Is God!”
OPEN
Have you ever found yourself in a situation beloved, when you were afraid to trust God; afraid to trust God because you weren’t quite sure that God would come through?
The way that you know that God is going to come through is to know His Word. Because what God says surely comes to pass and who God is never, never changes. And we’re going to see that in the book of Daniel in a way that is going to strengthen you beyond belief.
PART ONE
Oh my friend, welcome. I am so excited about this course that lies before us, as we look at the book of Daniel. It’s one of my favorite books in all the Word of God because no other book, no other book of the Bible, in such a short space, introduces you, not only to God, but what God has planned for the future. As a matter of fact, when you look at the book of Daniel it’s like rolling out the architects plans because every bit of prophesy in the rest of the Word of God fits into the book of Daniel. You can slot it somewhere in the prophesies of this book. And yet, Daniel is not just about the future. It’s not just about what God is going to do in Israel and what God is going to do in the world, in your world and in my world.
But it’s also about a man, a man who becomes a living epistle for us, a living example; so that we can look at his life and we can see how you and I can stand in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation and in integrity, hold forth the Word of life without compromising. I’m telling you it’s going to be an incredible, incredible study and I do pray that you just go to the phone and you call our 800 number and you order our study booklet immediately, because I want you to have it in your hands, because we’re going to be looking at a lot of history. You say, oh, history’s boring.
No, history is not boring because history is His, God’s story, H-i-s, His story, s-t-o-r-y. And you are going to learn to appreciate history because Daniel gives you history in advance. You know, a long time ago, I read a newspaper article and it was when the Berlin wall came down and when Ceausescu fell and everything was just happening. And it says “History Books Are Left in the Dust”. And history books were left in the dust. Every history book that man had written was left in the dust, but not God’s book. Because this is His story and it doesn’t leave us in the dust, but it clears the dust from our minds. And what we do is we get a glimpse of God. You’re going to get to know God in the most incredible and awesome way as we study this book.
I mean it’s going to awe you. It is going to give you a foundation so that you will be rock solid, so that no matter what comes your way you won’t be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine and cunning craftiness of men. So let’s get into Daniel. Now today what I want us to do is I want us to look at just the first couple verses of Daniel. The secret to reading Daniel is to go through and read the whole book and every time he tells you that it was a certain year and a certain king was ruling, then you need to write that down.
And as you do you’re going to see an outline of the book. But I’m not going to give you that yet because I want you to see it for yourself. So Daniel, chapter 1, verse 1: In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.
And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, into the Nebuchadnezzar’s hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he, Nebuchadnezzar, brought them to the land of Shinar, and to the house of his god, and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his god. Now what I want us to do is I want us to stop there. What we’re going to do is we’re going to look at the book of Daniel inductively because so many people think, hey, I can’t understand Daniel. It’s too deep, it takes a theologian to understand Daniel. And what I want to do is I want to prove to you through this study, that you yourself can understand this book.
And you can understand this book apart from going to commentaries. Now commentaries are good because you can learn from them, but they’re only good after you know the text so that when you read a commentary you know whether that person has accurately interpreted the text or not. Whenever you read the Word of God, always take it in its literal sense, because He’s going to let you know if He’s talking in sim, similes, or metaphors or that.
But always take it in its literal sense. And then if literally as you look at it, if it says he was like a lion, then you know that he wasn’t a lion, but he looked like a lion. Or you know that He’s using a metaphor. So that’s what you need to do when we look at Daniel. All right, now, let’s take it literally. It says this: In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah. All right, if you and I were to go to the chart that I have given you where we have laid out chronologically, the history of Israel, we would find that this is the year 605 B.C. All right, in 605 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar came down and went to Israel and there he besieged that city. It was Nebuchadnezzar’s first year of ruling.
And it was his first year of ruling because when he got to Jerusalem to besiege the city, he heard that his father, Nabopolassar had died. And so Nebuchadnezzar took off and went straight over to the land of Shinar. The land of Shinar is Babylon. If you would go back to Genesis, chapter 11, verse 2, you would see the land of Shinar mentioned there. That’s where they built the Tower of Babel.
So He was going back home to claim the throne so no usurper would get on the throne. Now it was in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah that this happened. So what we’re going to do is as we look at this, Jehoiakim is going to fade into the background. Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel are going to become the preeminent people in this chapter. So I would suggest that you color every reference to Nebuchadnezzar in one color and every reference to Daniel in another color.
Now I’m only having you do this in the first chapter because what I want you to do is I want you to see what God tells us about Nebuchadnezzar and I want you to see what God tells us about Daniel. All right so it says that he came to Jerusalem and he besieged it. And it says the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand. And I would suggest that you take a yellow pencil, or a yellow highlighter, but be careful that it doesn’t bleed through the page, if you’re marking your Bible, instead of marking your study guide. But I would suggest that you just take that yellow marker and you highlight the Lord gave.
And Daniel means my judge is God. Daniel understood so well the meaning of his name. He knew who his judge was and he walked in the fear of the Lord. And all throughout the book of Daniel, you’re going to see a man who walked in the knowledge of who his God was and the fact that he was accountable to this God. And he loved God. And you’re going to see that as we study the book. But more than that you are going to be introduced to God in the most awesome, awesome way.
And one of the things that I want to make sure that you do is I want to make sure that you discover for yourself who God is, that you deepen your knowledge and your understanding of God so that you understand that my judge is God; not that you live in this trembling hiding fear, but that you live in this awesome incredible respect and trust of God, because God is a God who can be trusted. You say but right here it says in verse 2 that the Lord gave Jehoiakim, who was the king of Judah into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and Nebuchadnezzar lived in the land of Shinar and Shinar was Babylon and they were a bunch of heathens.
And you read me and you told me that he brought some of the treasures of, of Daniel’s God to his house of his god and that shows that he had triumphed over God. Oh, to the world it showed that he had triumphed over God, but not to God and not to Daniel because what you’re going to see in this book is you’re going to see that nobody triumphs over God. God is absolutely totally, completely trustworthy. He never leaves His throne. He rules supremely over all the nations of this earth. You say well if He’s ruling; He’s doing a mighty lousy job. I want to tell you something.
That’s because you don’t know what’s happening, because you don’t understand the future. But after the book of Daniel you will. And you will understand oh no, everything is falling in place and getting ready for the coming of the Son of man to reign as King of kings and Lord of lords. The clock is ticking. It is time for Him to soon leave heaven and to come and to take away the kingdoms of this earth from the rule of man and subjugate them to Himself.
This is the time that is coming beloved and you and I need to be ready for it. And you will be ready if you’ll study the book of Daniel with me, if you will do your homework, if you will listen carefully, if you will mark the text, you’re going to be awed at what you see, at what you learn. And it’s going to give you a confidence so that you won’t be shaken by what’s happening in the news and by terrorist activity, but you will know that God is on His throne. We’ll talk about it when I come back.
PART TWO
Does God turn His back on His covenant people? No. You say, but the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. Wouldn’t you call that God turning His back? No beloved, He was just doing what He said He would do if they didn’t listen, if they didn’t obey Him.
And this is what I want you to see, that God can be trusted to be God and you can trust His Word. But sometimes our impression or our understanding of God is not correct. So let’s take this historical statement in Daniel, chapter 1, verses 1 and 2 and let’s look at what God is telling us when He opens this book. It says in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he brought them to the land of Shinar.
All right, what I want us to do is go back to Kings because if you’re going to understand the prophets you have to understand Kings and Chronicles. Kings gives us the history of Israel right after or as it is happening. Chronicles comes back and writes after the Babylonian captivity and it gives us a different perspective because he’s writing to the people that are coming back from captivity in order to encourage them to trust God and to walk according to His Word.
So when you find the name of the king you want to go back to Kings and Chronicles and find out what you learn about that king. What is the setting here? And I want to take you to 2 Kings, chapter 23, verse 36. And it says Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Zebidah the daughter of Pediah: I’m not sure I’m pronouncing those right, of Rumah.
And he did evil in the sight of the Lord. So God is turning over a king who was doing evil in His sight to and enemy the king of Babylon, so that the king of Babylon can act as God’s rod of judgment on Israel; not rod of destruction, but rod of judgment. And listen to me very, very carefully, when you belong to God, when you are His covenant people, when you become a child of God, God will never ever destroy you.
He will judge you if you do not walk and live properly, but He will not destroy you. And when He judges you that judgment is for your good, so that when you see Him, you can be presented blameless before God, before Jesus Christ at His coming. So this is what it says. In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant for three years; then he turned and rebelled against him. And the Lord sent against him bands of Chaldeans. Now this is so important for you to understand. Babylonians and Chaldeans are one in the same. Sometimes they’re called Babylonians. Sometimes they’re called Chaldeans. Bands of Arameans, bands of Moabites and bands of Ammonites.
So He sent them against Judah to destroy it, against the city, not the people, according to the word of the Lord, which He had spoken through His servants the prophets. Surely at the command of the Lord it came upon Judah, to remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done.
And there was no king more evil than Manasseh. And so because of his sins God was going to judge them. Now, let me read verse 4. And also for the innocent blood which he shed, talking about Manasseh, for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; and the Lord would not forgive. Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? Yes they are. So let’s go to the Book of Chronicles. Second Chronicles, chapter 36 and I want us to look at verse 5.
It says Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and he did evil in the sight of the Lord his God. And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against him and bound him with bronze chains to take him to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar also brought some of the articles of the house of the Lord to Babylon and put them in his temple at Babylon.
Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim and the abominations which he did, and what was found against him, behold they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah. And Jehoiachin became king in his place. All right, now, if you’re looking at the text you’re going to see that there are basically three sieges of Jerusalem. The first one happens in verse 6 and that’s in 605 B.C., in 605 B.C. The second siege of Jerusalem happens and is recorded in verse 9 and that’s when Jehoiachin, his son, becomes king. And at that time the prophet Ezekiel goes to Babylon. All right, there’s a third and final siege when Jerusalem is destroyed and that happens in 586 B.C. and that is mentioned in verse 17.
It says therefore, He, God brought against them the king of the Chaldeans who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or infirm; He gave them all into his hand. And all the articles of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the kings of his officers, he brought them to Babylon. And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall. This is the destruction of Jerusalem, the final destruction. All right so now Daniel opens up with the first siege of Jerusalem and I want to give you one last verse for you to think about. And then tomorrow we will continue in the Book of Daniel. And I want to take you to Isaiah, chapter 44, verse 7. Can God be trusted? Listen to what he says in verse 6.
Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: I am the first and I am the last. In other words, I’m the Alpha, the beginning and I’m the Omega, I’m the end. And there is no God besides Me. There is no God besides Me. Nebuchadnezzar was not worshipping actual gods. They did not exist. They were the figment of man’s imaginations. And behind those idols of those gods was the devil himself. And it says and who is like Me, God says? Let him proclaim and declare it; yes, let him recount it to Me in order, from the time that I established the ancient nation. And let them declare to them the things that are coming and the events that are going to take place.
In other words, go ahead, try and tell Me what the future holds. You can’t do it. But I’m God and I hold the future and therefore I know what the future holds. He knows what the future is for the nations and He knows what your future is too, beloved. And as we study the Book of Daniel, you’re going to discover a God who sits on His throne, a God whose name is El Elyon, the Most High God; a God who rules in the affairs of men; a God that you can trust because His Word is trustworthy.
And you’re going to see it in a dimension probably that you have never seen it before and you’re going to be awed at the greatness of our God.
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