Transcript The Fabulous Life of… Daniel Time is Ticking Away…

The Fabulous Life of…
Daniel
Time is Ticking Away…
You looked, O king, and there before you stood a large statue- an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance.
The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and
arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron,
its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. While you were
watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It
struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed
them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the
gold were broken to pieces at the same time and became
like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind
swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that
struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the
whole earth…
This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king.
You, O king, are the king of kings. The God of heaven has
given you dominion and power and might and glory; in your
hands he has placed mankind and the beasts of the field
and the birds of the air. Wherever they live, he has made
you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold. After you,
another kingdom will rise, inferior to yours. Next, a third
kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth.
Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron-- for
iron breaks and smashes everything-- and as iron breaks
things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others…
Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked
clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet
it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you
saw iron mixed with clay.
As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will
be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the
iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture
and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with
clay. In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set
up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left
to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring
them to an end, but it will itself endure forever…
This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a
mountain, but not by human hands-- a rock that broke the
iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.
The great God has shown the king what will take place in the
future. The dream is true and the interpretation is
trustworthy
- Daniel 2:31-45
1- “Everything you have, Nebuchadnezzar,
comes from God. Therefore, it’s an
entrustment”
BToL-If it comes from God, then you are
responsible to God for what you do with it
2- The king has been entrusted with all that
he has because God has a purpose for him
3- Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom will end and
another will come and take over
Teach us to number our days aright, that we
may gain a heart of wisdom - Psalm 90:12
If you number your days, you live in the
awareness of a quick end at any moment
and live differently
Two main reasons for prophecy:
1- Authentication
2- Encouragement/Warning
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will
disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire,
and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since
everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people
ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as
you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.
That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by
fire, and the elements will melt in the heat- 2 Peter 3:1012
What God is saying to us today:
- Missional living- something greater than
ourselves
- Incarnational living- Jesus living through us
Communion points backward
Communion points forward
“I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from
now on until that day when I drink it anew
with you in my Father’s kingdom”
- Matthew 26:29
Communion is a down-payment on a promise
God will keep. It reminds us to live for him
now
“The eyes of the Lord range throughout the
earth to strengthen those whose hearts are
fully committed to him” - 2 Chronicles 16:9