Walk With Me

A Tree, A Lion’s Den, And A Very Bad Party

• JJ

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Hello, everybody. Welcome to today's episode of Walk With Me. I am your host, JJ. So good to have each and every one of you here with us today. So good to have all the sponsors and all you guys that keep coming back. Thank you all for all the questions that you're sending me, the Walk With Me Bible Study at Gmail. Thank you all. It lets me know that you're actually following along. And please be patient. Please be patient because I I will get to some of the questions that you're answered asking. But um real quick, let me talk about the sponsors and then we'll get into that. So thank you so much for True Bar's Lyricist who uh gave us the pump, the intro, the outro, this uh the show, and and thank you for exquisite creations or making our merch and anything like that for us. Uh, big thanks and big shout out to Straight Arrow Ministries and Iron Gate Ministries for picking us up. Thank you all so much. I have big things uh going on with that in the future. Thank you all very much, and I may have an announcement coming soon. I know I've been teasing this for a little while, but sometimes you just gotta let God do what he has to do. Uh, but that being said, let's get back to these questions. Um I I do love the questions, and please keep them coming. I'm not saying don't ask the questions. Um, here's the thing is when they when we're doing a an in-depth sort of study like this, um, a lot of the questions that you're going that you're asking me, I have I I may just send you back, like I said, I've responded to a couple people. Yes, that's coming, that's coming. Don't think that um I'm just sort of brushing you off. This end times Bible study is probably going to be the most in-depth one I've ever done. And it's important that we go beyond the surface because sometimes we like to look at. I was talking to somebody, one of my good co-worker friends, and she's all about nostalgia and this and that, and that and that's okay. That's okay. But if you go with just one scripture or one thing that's prophesied for the end times, we'll miss a lot of things that will make um that will make that will change the context of what you're seeing now. So it's important to really go through it step by step and really build a foundation before we get to the whole beast rising out of the sea and who's the Antichrist and where that person is. Okay, so all I'm asking is please be a little bit patient with me. I'm I have to go through this very slowly and very methodically and very thoroughly. And again, this is there's a reason for this because it's it's in the Bible, and so one thing I've I have come to find out, I've come to figure out in studying the Bible, that as much stuff that is in there, as much things that are going on in there, there just isn't anything superfluous, there's nothing extra. There's there may be things that repeat themselves, and they repeat themselves for a reason, but there's no fluff in the Bible. So um that being said, we would. I'm just gonna get right back into it. Um, because last week we're talking about um Daniel and the diet, the Alliance Den, and and we're we have to keep this whole thing going because the book of Daniel does uh correlate and sort of sister uh sister butt book the book of Revelation. Now there are a lot of other books in the Old Testament that will kind of refer to Revelation but or to refer to other prophecies, like Isaiah talked about the coming birth of Jesus Christ a lot, but right now I'm trying not to make this too convoluted, so um, but and then in the meantime, not um missing anything important. So please take notes, send questions. I love questions, okay. But remember, when we give a scripture, uh always read a verse or two above or a verse or two below, because we want everything to be in context, okay. So now we we talked about that first stream, and I just sort of touched on it and what that meant, and I'm just gonna touch on that, and then I'm gonna go into what we're gonna talk about today. So remember, uh Nebuchadnezzar had that dream where he had the guy who had the head of gold and the breast of arms of silver. Uh, and when you read that, you gotta understand that when Daniel was telling, was interpreting these dreams, he was saying he was basically telling Nebuchadnezzar the order of kingdoms that were to come, working from the head down. What was the strongest? What was the next strongest? What was the one after that? What would be the weakest kingdom, and how it was all going to come apart. So we are actually seeing, or we have actually seen in history this Nebuchadnezzar thing. Oh, where do you see that at? First off, the heart, the head of gold was Babylon. That was Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom. That was the first big, strong, solid kingdom. Right after that, you had Meteor Persia. Remember how where the Babylonians had fell off, and and they were felt his uh his son was in there and drinking, and the handwriting came out. The Medes and the Persians are going to destroy you this night. That ushered in the Medes and the Persians. That was from about 538 um to 330 BC. Now notice I'm I'm noted I'm numerating it in what appears to be backwards because we're working up to the time of Christ. So 538 is actually older than 330. Yeah, I know it sounds basic, but I just like to you know make sure everything is is in decency and in order in its proper place. So 538 to 330 BC was the meeting of Persians. Now the belly and the thighs of brass, in the book that in the Bible they call it the loin, but that's the thigh. That's the Grecian Empire. That's your 330 to 146 BC, and after that, the legs of iron, which was Rome, which was 146 to 408 AD, after the birth of Christ, or in Latin terms, a AD stands for Amno Dominion. Now we gotta note something here. Alexander died in 323 BC during his 33rd year. It was after that that his uh his kingdom was divided up into four generals. That's why it was never as strong as the Babylonian Empire. The two legs, which is the Roman Empire, was divided into two parts. You had the eastern parts and the western parts. If you look at your history books, you will see that there's an Eastern Roman Empire, there's a Western Roman Empire. They didn't really fight, but they didn't actually get along either. So, and then if you were on the western side, you were always fighting the what became Spain and France and Portugal, and then the eastern part, you always had to fight what became the Goths and the Busy Goths, and I mean it it's all right there in history. Now, I don't want to get off into that because I am a big history book, and when you see how this you know how this correlates to what we are taught in history, it starts to really make sense as to why they're trying to take certain things out of history books. So now these ten toads will reset will represent the ten kings of the end times prior to Armageddon, and I want you to understand that because this remember we were talking about how Daniel and Revelation are sister books. Each one of these writers saw things from their own perspective because this is the way God was explaining it to them. Now, that stone, then all of a sudden you saw this stone that was cut out without hand, which would be Jesus Christ, which will set up a uh a kingdom of his own. And this is what is commonly referred to as the Millennial Kingdom. Now, the future Gentile kingdoms were really what Nebuchadnezzar was seeing, and because Nebuchadnezzar did not know how to talk about the future, which most of us don't, we generally don't even, our minds won't even generally recognize the future until it happens. If you ever get that feeling, that's deja vu, it's because God already tried to tell you this is going to happen, and we weren't paying attention. But moving right along, because that's I I wanted to touch on that, I wanted to finish that up because Nebuchadnezzar had a second dream. And in this dream, he had a it was a big old tree, and a lot of preachers don't preach on this tree. I'm not sure as to why not, but in this dream, there was a huge tree that stretched all the way to heaven, and there were birds on it, and and there was lions and stuff underneath the the tree in the shade, and then the holy one came down from heaven and said, Cut down this tree. However, the the stump was that was left that was left after the tree was cut down, was covered in iron so that it wouldn't grow. So in the dream, the the watcher declared the beast's heart to be given until seven times passed over. And when the wise men were unable to interpret the dream, the king called to Daniel again. This is the second time. Now, uh, if I remember right, Daniel was quiet for a minute because he was waiting for God to tell him what to do. There's a lesson right there about us trying to get out ahead of God, and a lot of time we don't want to do that, and so when we we feel these what am I saying? When we get to these parts where we don't quite understand, we instantly try to it plug things in, and we try to plug things in because it sounds good at the moment, and then when we go to really think about it or pray about it or read about it, it start to uh it starts to really contradict the word of God, and we don't know how to handle that. Now, this thing, this dream was about Nebuchadnezzar about to face God's judgment because judgment was to fall upon him for seven years. That tree that um showed Nebuchadnezzar's great kingdom was about to be cut down, and that's that stump was about to be bound up for what they call seven times. Whenever you hear seven times, that generally means seven times earth around the sun, which is generally seven years. Now, during this time, he's gonna lose his sanity, he's gonna be just like the beast that was under his his own leaves, but after that, he was gonna pray, and his sanity was gonna be restored, and we see that his kingdom would also be restored, and the stump in the ground would show that a kingdom that God that was not built by God can be destroyed, and even though your your kingdom can be destroyed, God will have mercy on it and not destroy it completely. So it's right about this fourth chapter. This is we sort of see a shift in Nebuchadnezzar, and and again, I'm not sure as to why we don't preach this very often because Nebuchadnezzar was a very cruel man, he was a very serious king, but in this fourth chapter, Nebuchadnezzar started to convert, and he started saying things in like in Daniel chapter 2. Well, you know, he your your God is a God of God and a Lord of kings. This is Daniel 2.47. Daniel 3.29, he was saying stuff like, nor the God can deliver after this sort. When he was talking about the three men coming out of the fire. When but in Daniel 4, chapter, chapter 4, verse 2 and 3, he started delivering a testimony. And even after that, he was he was told that he should get rid of his sins by living a righteous life. Maybe that's why we don't preach that tree anymore, because he can't preach that tree without preaching 427. But just like some of us, Nebuchadnezzar had a pride problem. And I mean, let's let's be realistic. Let's be realistic here. We can't really fault Nebuchadnezzar for having a pride problem. He was the king of the world at that time. You have to have some sort of some level of pride if you're a man and you're a kingdom of other men at that time. So guess what? Daniel 4 30 happened. Then after that, he had completely forgotten his vision, he had completely forgotten the interpretation, and he was sunk, uh, he was humbled in for seven years, and then in 434, he lifted up his eyes, and he realized that God had rescued him. So, and that that is another part of Daniel being the book of Daniel being correlated to the book of Revelation, and this sort of thing, we were talking before about I think it was in week one of this, how there are some prophecies that are prophetical, and then there are some which are which I'm gonna just call transhetical. Yeah, I'm gonna- that's the word I'm gonna use, transhetical. And the reason why I say that is because it's a it's a prophecy that takes takes place then, and then it's a prophecy that takes place now, and it's the same prophecy, so we can't discard it because it already came true, because it's or it's gonna come true again. In other words, this is what I call a transprophetical thing. Man is gonna reach a peak of pride and arrogance, and where God is completely ruled out. Now, every once in a while you you you see something that doesn't even make sense of why man could do some things, and we could talk about how we completely rule out the idea that God put us in the right bodies, for instance, or God is, or or we are now gods because we're creating AI, and then AI is supposed to serve us the way we're supposed to serve God, and then what's gonna happen is that this AI is gonna rebel against us just like we rebel against God, but we're not gonna be able to shut the AI down like God shut us down. I hope that's not prophecy, but I I fear that this may happen. Now, when this rapture happens, and there is gonna be a rapture, we're gonna get to that. That's in the New Testament. But when this rapture happens, there are gonna be seven years of really bad madness and insanity. Insanity, like you think things are crazy now. There is still some measure of godly spirit that's holding everything back right now. Now, when that happens, all restraints are gonna be lifted. It's gonna be a time of lawlessness that you and I cannot even fathom. For instance, when we look at the book of Judges, one of the things that I I talk about a lot in the book of Judges is there's just a phrase that keeps appearing over and over. There was no king in Israel, and I may actually talk about that on Sunday. There was no king in Israel, and basically it was like everyone was doing right what was what was right in their own eyes. And you and I, because we are basically kind of decent people, we think, oh well, if I feel like I want to park here, I'm just gonna park here. No, no, no. We're talking about a lawless and insane time. Think of it like um kind of like the purge, where there's gonna be just a level of insanity and lawlessness that where there will be no consequences, we're moving in that direction where your actions are your actions, and there are no consequences, and and there's just gonna be just pretty much everybody for themselves, and that stump that Nebuchadnezzar saw when the tree was cut down, it's gonna be that we're not completely destroyed during this period, but we won't be able to grow. But there will be a way of repentance that will that'll show, and and and I'm starting to believe that people that make it to the millennium reign, the millennium kingdom, if you can make it to seven years, remember now, you only have um you only have a one in four chance of surviving that seven year period. Unless I will get into that, but I want you to write that down now. One over four, one fourth, one in four chance of surviving the next seven years after the rapture after the rapture starts, or let me just be more generalistic and say, um, after the tribulation starts. And the reason why I say that is because some people uh are pre-tribulation and some are mid-tribulation. So we don't want to get that part. Um I'm sorry, let me back up. Some people are pre-tribulation rapture and some are mid-tribulation rapture, and there are some people who are post-tribulation rapture. I mean, I don't I don't see it being post-tribulation. Um I'm I would like it to be pre-tribulation, but and uh, some people think it's mid-tribulation, and that's just a matter of we can we can search the scripture about it if you want, but I think all of it sort of ends up as in uh the Bible sort of point more to it being pre-tribulation because after the the spirit of God is lifted out, the sinner from son of uh perdition is revealed, and blah blah blah. So I tend to believe more towards pre-tribulation, that the rapture is going to signify the start of the tribulation. That being said, you only have about a one-in-four chance of surviving the next seven years. The end. And if you do make it to the end of seven years, you may have a chance of repenting, and and that sort of that's where I was going with that that band around the tree. Um, because the mankind is not completely destroyed, but is it can have a chance of regrowth, so you may have a chance of repenting during that millennial strain. Because after that, the devil's gonna come back and deceive people again, and then the final judgment. So, that being said, I want to start before we run out of time. We were talking about before the Medes and the Persians, and doing this Bible study is gonna be so hard for me to get ahead of myself. Oh my god. So remember, we were talking about the Medes and the Persians and how they came after Babylon. Well, that happened because there was a king Belshazzar, which came after Nebuchadnezzar, which was Nebuchadnezzar's son. But some people have said, and I've I've heard it said a lot, that it was Belshazzar that was not the king of Babylon was overthrown. But you know what? The Bible says it was Belshazzar, so I'm gonna go with Belshazzar. There was a uh inscription in 1853, um, that they the inscription was founded in 1853, uh, that was built by Nabonide. In his description, Belshazzar is mentioned as being his firstborn and favorite son. So that means Belshazzar would have been Nebuchadnezzar's grandson. Um, now in this and in this inscription, uh Daniel called Belshazzar the son of Nebuchadnezzar. Now, what does that mean, JJ? Is there a Bible contradiction? No, no, no. Jesus is also referred to as the son of David. That just means that there was a lineage that can be transferred back, and that doesn't mean that without um that that Jesus was not the son of God. People will say all it all day, I'm the son of Jacob. You're not the son of Jacob, you're like the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandson. But that's how they refer to it in the Bible. This is the son of. So when you say stuff like that, you just got to understand how it is written. So now let's talk about that handwriting on the wall before we run out of time. Now, this is the second time in the Bible where God is being depicted to have written something himself. The first time was on Mount Sinai when God delivered the law on the stone tables, the stone tablets. Here on the walls of Babylon, God wrote a message of judgment. Now, in the New Testament, Jesus is gonna stoop down and write a message in the sand. So I'm telling you, this is how this is the same God yesterday, today, and forever. God wrote something on tablets, which is made of sand, which is because it's rock and rock is made of sand. Then God came and wrote something on the wall, which back then they they made concrete out of sand, they still make concrete out of sand, and then Jesus went back and stood down and wrote something on the sand when they brought that woman to uh accuse her of adultery. So God knelt down and he started writing in sand. And this is the three things that God has ever written. He's written the law when he was talking to Moses, he was writing judgment when he was talking to the um the Babylonians, and he was writing about grace when he was talking about when that situation was the adulterous one. You see, all of these things tie in together, there is no separation. The only thing that separates the New Testament and the Old Testament is the 400 years of silence, but that does not mean that God went away somewhere and had a vacation. This is the same God doing the same thing, and I'm trying again not to get ahead of myself. So let's talk about it and then we're gonna wrap up. Belshazzar had this great feast. Now, he invited all kinds of people and important people, it's like they always sort of do, or they sort of did. They are always invited the important people, they always brought big people in, and and and then Belshazzar decided while they were all drunk and acting crazy that um and doing all the things that they would actually do the sin that would that they knew was wrong, because Nebuchadnezzar knew it was wrong, and Nebuchadnezzar passed this down, they knew it was wrong. You inherently know when you're doing something wrong. So you went and Belshazzar took all the stuff out of the temple. Remember stuff that God said, don't touch. Even Nebuchadnezzar didn't touch it. But every time you turn around when somebody's doing something bad, it seems like the next next generation's got to do something worse. So he thought it could be a great idea to entertain his guests and simultaneously show his contempt for God. And then so he brought all these sacred vessels out. These are the sacred vessels that had been picked up and stored in there all the way back from the time of Jericho. And he decided that he was going to use them in service to pagan gods, and it was then, right then, out of nowhere, these hands come back and wrote, Mine, mine techopteris. Now, some people have told me, and I I have to take their word for it because I wasn't there. But these words were written in Aramaic and could be read by everybody. No one knew the meaning, but even though they could be read. The wise man couldn't do it, the the queen mother that they had, the pagan idol worshiping so-called prophetess came up in there to say, Hey man, I can't do this either. But you know what? Who could probably do it? Daniel could probably tell. Because Daniel knows this kind of stuff. So Daniel, so Belshazzar said, Hey man, I'll give you anything you want, I'll give you gold and nice robes and a new title. Daniel didn't need any of that, but he told them what Mine, Mine, Teko Paris is, and Mine was written twice. So Mina is numbered. God has numbered that your kingdom is finished it. So he finished it twice. It was weighed in the balances and found warranted. In other words, it was weighed the judgment and the unrighteousness, righteousness and unrighteousness was weighed, and you were found to be unrighteous. Division, which is the parish, the kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians. And right about that time, even while Daniel was given that measurement of judgment, the enemy was already entering the city. And on that note, we're gonna stop. Sometimes, sometimes we think we can just sort of get along with things and just sort of do things the way we want to do things. And we we see this now, especially, it seems like every day now, things are happening, things are picking up scheme, things are are are spiraling out of control. We sort of get a little bit of control back, and then it gets worse again. All because we're not given, we're not allowing God to control these things. We're trying to control them, and then we wonder why it never seems to work out. So I say all these things because this is what the Bible says. This is the pattern that the Bible has laid out for us. So we're gonna talk about what happened after that and what historical lessons that we're just we should carry over as we continue this study of Daniel and how it relates to Revelation. We are gonna get into Revelation, y'all. I would say we're about a little bit close to halfway through. Because I'm not gonna cover all of Daniel, I just want to cover the most important part and how the parts that really relate to Revelation. I thank you all so much for being with us. I thank you all so much for liking and sharing. Thank you for the comments. If you're on YouTube, thank you. If you're on iHeartRadio, I don't think my I don't think they allow podcasts, but they do allow send me a text on iHeartRadio app. So you can always do that. Thank you all so much. Thank you all so much. Thank you all for the feedback. Thank you for the love on the fate on the social media pages. Thank you all. Love you all so much. Uh, and I can't wait to get back to you guys next week. Love y'all, bye bye.