SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/3/2023 9:25 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “Intro to Daniel 2:31-49”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Daniel
2:31-49
Message of the
verses: Once again I will not put
these verses onto this SD as I will leave it up to the reader to look them up.
Once again I will put this introduction from John
MacArthur’s sermon onto both of my blogs and also onto my story on
Facebook. I mentioned that this sermon
is 44 years old, but the message of this is very important to us living today.
“Fred
Barshaw gave me a very interesting article this week and I want to share it
with you. It says the following was written by Professor Alexander Tyler nearly
200 years ago while our 13 original colonies were still a part of Great
Britain. In fact, Tyler was at the time writing about the fall of the Athenian
Republic over 2,000 years earlier. This is what he said and I'm quoting. “A
democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist
until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public
treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates
promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a
democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship.
“The
average age,” – says Tyler – “of the world’s greatest civilizations has been
200 years.” For us, that was 1976. “These nations have progressed through the
following sequence” - now listen to this - “from bondage to spiritual faith,
from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to
abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from
complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, and from dependency back into
bondage.”
“Every
nation follows the same cycle. And democracy seems to follow it just as fast or
in some cases faster than any other form of government. By the way, it might
shock you to know that democracy is not God’s form of government. God’s form is
theocracy where one person rules and that person is God. The world today then
is simply going through the same cycles of dissolution that it has always
endured. We can see the seeds of dissolution very, very manifested.
“As
we look at the world today, we see the world as a vast stage. A vast stage with
the final curtain still down. And we get the feeling that the actors are behind
that final curtain, preparing for the last scene in the drama of human history.
The play is almost done. There remains but one more scene. And that final scene
is the latter days and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we step close to
the stage, behind the curtain we can hear the commotion of the stagehands as
they set up the machinery and set the stage for that final act.
“And
now, as we come to Daniel 2, Daniel takes us behind the curtain before it
rises. We’re going to see incredible insights, not only in Daniel 2 but
from Daniel 2 to the end of the book. The unfolding of the last act on the
stage of human history. Now tonight, as we look at chapter 2, verses 31 and
following, we’re going to see the great history of the Gentile world rule.
Jesus said there would be a time titled - Luke 21:24 – “the times of the Gentiles.” It had already
begun; it would come to an end at the coming of Christ. In fact, that verse
says “Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the
Gentiles be fulfilled.”
“There
will be a period of time when Jerusalem is under the control when the nation of
Israel is under bondage to some degree or another, the Gentile world power.
That is known as the times of the Gentiles. Interestingly enough it began with
the Babylonian captivity. It began with Nebuchadnezzar. It ends with the coming
of Jesus Christ. We’re living in that time right now. Israel does not possess
the fullness of its inheritance, Israel does not dwell in its land in peace,
Israel does not possess everything from the Mediterranean to the Tigris and
Euphrates as in the original Palestinian covenant.
“These
are the times of the Gentiles. Gentile nations have dominated that part of the
world since Nebuchadnezzar, and they will, to some degree, hold power over it
until Jesus comes again. In Ezekiel chapter 21, Ezekiel tells us that the glory
had departed from Israel. The glory had departed from Israel. Now God in a
sense, when Israel went into captivity, just moved away. And Ichabod, the glory
has departed was written on that land. Now listen to me. The second chapter of
Daniel then indicates that God transfers the leadership of this Earth from the
Jew and Israel to the Gentiles. Israel takes a back seat.
“Israel
goes into captivity and never returns to its former glory ever, not even today.
Not until Jesus comes. Israel should have been the center of the world. Israel
should have been the pattern, the leader of the world. Israel should’ve been
that very special people God originally intended them to be, through whom we’re
given the law and the ordinances and the covenants and the promises. Israel
should have been the messenger for the world. But Israel tragically failed.
“In
Deuteronomy 32 in verse 8, “When the most high divided to the nations
their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the
people according to the number of the children of Israel. While the Lord’s
portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.” Originally, Israel
was His people. Jacob was the lot of His inheritance. The center of the world and
the focus of everything was on God’s chosen people, Israel. That’s the way it
was. That’s the way God intended it to be. It was God’s purpose that the king,
the incarnate Son of God should come and reign in Jerusalem. And from Him would
flow out blessings to the whole world.
“But
as you know the tragic history of Israel, Israel wouldn’t obey God, Israel
wouldn’t love God, Israel went into idolatry and spiritual adultery and all
kinds of other evil things and God finally had to remove Israel from the
central place. They were to be the place of messiah. In Psalm 2, the second of
the psalms, God made it clear. He said, “Yet” - verse 6 - “have I set my king
upon my holy hill of Zion.” God’s place was Zion. God’s king was to sit in
Zion. No one was to usurp that place.
“But
what happened? First the kingdom was divided because of the terrible sins of
Solomon. The ten tribes in the north split off and became known as Israel. The
two tribes remaining in the south, Judah and Benjamin constituted the nation of
Judah. So you have Judah and Israel. The northern tribes decided they’d rather
have idolatry than the true worship of God. So they pursued their idolatry and
they were literally destroyed by the Assyrians.
“The
righteous out of the ten had migrated to the south. And so the south was the
remnant of the ten plus Judah and Benjamin. But sadly to say, they also
rebelled. They also fell into idolatry, and not many years later they too were
hauled off into captivity in Babylon, and that’s where we pick up the story
when we come to Daniel. It is the story of Judah, the southern kingdom, carried
into captivity. And the beginning of Gentile domination of the land if Israel.
“The
glory days are over. The days of the great are over. Jerusalem is a rubble,
devastated, decimated, and the times of the Gentiles have begun. And it will
not again be Israel in its fullness until the messiah returns. Now, the sweep
of history from Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity all the way to the
time of Jesus Christ is covered in this one chapter. And I want you to see
this. This is a very powerful section of Scripture. Everything from
Nebuchadnezzar all the way to the coming of Jesus Christ is touched on in this
chapter in a broad and general way.”
Because
of the importance of this subject I will do one more SD on this introduction
that John MacArthur gives in this section from Daniel 2:31-49. On his website where I get this quotation he
actually gives three sermons on these verses, but I will only quote from this
first one. The website is gty.org if
anyone wants to read or listen to this entire sermon.
8/3/2023 9:50 AM
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