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Sutherlin SDA Church

War of Thrones

Daniel Pel

Revealing the War Behind All Wars

We are going to look at Bible prophecy from the perspective of the conflict between good and evil.

And what you will find out is when you study Bible prophecy and you study the Scriptures, that there is a battle that is taking place between good and evil, and that actually all of us have a place to play in this battle between good and evil.

And we are going to discover through Bible prophecy how this battle started, what is happening right now, and how this is also going to conclude or end.

And I believe this is going to be an interesting journey.

And so I just want to really get right into our first presentation here, which is entitled Revealing the War Behind All Wars.

And we're going to start with a story that Jesus told in the Gospel book of Matthew.

Now I'm glad to see that some of you have brought Bibles or you raised your hand and you got a Bible passed out to you, handed to you tonight, and so you can follow along in the scripture.

I will also have some of the passages, or quite a lot of the passages on the screen, but it's always good for yourself to actually read these texts in scripture as well.

And so the first story that we're going to go to here is a parable that Jesus told that we find in the first book of the New Testament.

Matthew was a text collector, he became a disciple of Jesus, and he recorded the story of Jesus in the first book of the New Testament and as Matthew portrays the story of Jesus he often would also tell the stories that Jesus told.

Jesus would tell these stories that we call parables, illustrative teachings about deep lessons of life.

And there's this parable in Matthew chapter 13 that is quite fascinating when we are talking here about the theme of the conflict between good and evil.

And Jesus in Matthew chapter 13 in the parable talks about a sower that went forth to sow good seed.

And if you've ever had a garden or you've sown seed, you do that with an intentionality because you expect something, you expect a harvest.

And so Jesus tells the story about a good sower that sows good seed and he's expecting a good harvest, But then in the story he reveals something else and that is that during the night there is someone that comes into this picture and that is an enemy and he sows something else.

And now there is a field and in the field there is wheat and tares and both are growing up.

And Jesus tells this remarkable, simple, yet simple story and the disciples are listening to this and later in the day they come to Jesus and they say, what did you actually mean with that parable?

You talked about a man sowing good seed, but then you talked about an enemy coming into the picture and during the night sowing something else and then and then eventually the wheat and the tares grew together unto the harvest.

And so Jesus gives the explanation of this parable And if you have it there in your Bibles in Matthew chapter 13, take notice what Jesus says, or rather take notice what the disciples ask and then let's take a look at the response of Jesus.

Now the question of the disciples is in verse 36.

They heard the parable, and now in the end of the day, they come to Jesus and they say the following.

Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house, and his disciples came to him saying, explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.

There's something that the disciples want to know.

They want to know about where those tares came from in the field.

They want to know more about the enemy in the story that sowed the tares in the field by night.

And then Jesus answers in verse 37 and he says, he who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man.

Now the Son of Man is a reference to Jesus himself, it was a reference that he often used to describe his work as the Messiah that had come.

And so he's referring to himself as the 1 that sowed the good seed, but then he continues in verse 38.

He says, the field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked 1.

The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels." So suddenly now this simplistic story takes on a whole new meaning.

And suddenly we become involved in this story because as we go through life it's almost like walking through this field.

And as we walk through this field in life we see the tears and we see the wheat and we see the tares, we see the good and we see the evil.

We see that there are things that just belong to this life, beautiful things, but then there's also suffering and death.

And it's sometimes hard for us to make sense out of this world.

And 1 of the 1 of the most difficult things to make sense out of is is really suffering.

And you know when you look at life it's almost like it also it always has these kind of 2 sides to it.

Like you look at this beautiful rose, but when you wanna pick it, well, you notice it has thorns.

Or if you look at a beautiful scene of an ocean, this can give good memories to you, but for other people, this will be a memory of a tsunami that ruined everything that they owned.

There's the good, there's the evil, there's the beauty, but then there's the tragedy.

And Jesus in this simple story, this simple parable, he says there's a sower that sowed good seed, but there's also an enemy that sowed the tares.

We are like in this field, we're going through this life and we notice these 2 sides of life.

Now I find it very remarkable because when I travel around the world, 1 of the questions that I've received most often in my international traveling and speaking is the question regarding evil.

Now, I've spoken at universities, I've spoken at large settings, but every time that people come to me afterwards and they have some kind of Bible question, the number 1 Bible question that I've received throughout the last 15 years of international travel and speaking is the question regarding evil.

Why is there so much suffering in the world?

And maybe you've also come here tonight with that question on your mind.

Why is there so much suffering in this world?

Do you know that it's interesting that the question itself indirectly points us actually back to there being a moral standard in the universe.

Now I hope that you switched on your brain capacities tonight because I want you to follow a little bit in this reasoning, okay?

When we ask the question about suffering, why is there suffering, we are acknowledging that there is something such as suffering, are you with me?

Now if we acknowledge that there's something such as suffering, we are actually also acknowledging that there's something such as evil, because suffering is not good.

And oftentimes when we talk about suffering, we are talking about it related to people, right?

So there's something that is not good, it's evil.

Now if we acknowledge that there's something such as evil, we must by definition also acknowledge that there's something such as evil, we must by definition also acknowledge that there's something such as good.

Otherwise we wouldn't know the difference between good and evil.

Now in order to know the difference between good and evil, we must acknowledge that there's a moral standard to know the difference.

Now catch this, if there is a moral standard there must also be someone that is giving this moral standard.

Now that's interesting because there are millions of people in our world today that are asking the very same question, why is there so much suffering in the world?

Now what is interesting to me is that question will come from atheists, that question will come from Hindu, people that belong to the Hindu religion, this question will come from Buddhists, this question will come from Muslims, this question will come from Christians.

And this question indirectly actually points us to there must be a moral standard.

There must be a moral standard giver in order for there to be evil and good and for there to actually to be suffering in the world.

Now how many of you have heard of this gentleman Richard Dawkins?

He's actually 1 of the most well-known atheists in our world today.

He wrote the book The God Delusion which has sold millions of copies around the world.

Now I want you to take notice to this statement that he made.

Richard Dawkins said the following, there is no evil.

Now Richard Dawkins, it's kind of like this is what he had to say because he knows and understands that the acknowledgement of evil is also the acknowledgement of good, it's an acknowledgement of a moral standard, and perhaps a moral standard giver as well.

So he is dissonancing himself from the whole concept of there being anything that is really evil.

Now, I know a lot of atheists that aren't here, that wouldn't be saying this.

But Richard Dawkins, at least he has taken the, he's done the mental exercise, we could say, to carry his theory of atheism all the way through, to actually have to say that there's no such thing as evil.

Now maybe some of you are familiar with Rabbi Zacharias, a Christian apologist, and he said something interesting.

He said the following, when you start, and this is a kind of a little bit, you know, wordplay, when you start a train of thought, it's important to check the ticket to see where it's going to let you off.

So you know you can have you can have a ticket that says atheism, there is no God.

Now that ticket is going to lead you in a certain destination, right?

You can have the ticket, I believe that we're here for a purpose, I believe that God has created us, I believe that there is a God and that also is going to lead you to a certain destination.

And so as we come here together tonight and as we're going in the course of the following evenings are going to study together Bible prophecy, I believe that our ticket is a ticket that says, you know what, there is actually purpose and meaning in life, and the question about suffering actually makes sense because there is something such as good and evil and there is a moral standard and there is a moral standard giver.

And so this is the ticket that we are holding tonight and it's going to lead us into a certain direction.

Now when you look at Scripture and you look at kind of the big picture of scripture, there are these central themes that will come and that will meet you as you read the Bible all the way from the beginning in the book of Genesis to the last book in the Bible, the book of Revelation.

And there are basically 3 words that we are going to examine together in the course of our time together in this series.

And these are the 3 words here, creation, conflict, and covenant.

Well, that God created this world and He created us with a purpose, and He created everything good in the beginning, but then something happened.

What Does the Future Hold?

We have chosen as the overall theme of this series, War of Thrones, and so we're looking at the conflict between good and evil, the battle between good and evil.

And yesterday, I think we kind of laid the groundwork, we built a foundation as we looked at Scripture and what Scripture teaches about this conflict, this cosmic conflict.

But you know, there are many stories in the Bible, stories in the Scripture, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, of events that happened on this earth that are like a type of this great and grand battle between good and evil.

And so you have stories in the Old Testament about kings and kingdoms and battles and wars.

And these provide us, of course, information about what happened in the past, but they are also a picture of a bigger thing that is going on.

And I want to take you tonight to the book of Daniel in the Old Testament.

And in the Old Testament, there's this book by, it has the title of the writer, Daniel, and it was written between 500 and 600 years before Christ.

And this little book of 12 chapters in the Old Testament provides us with some incredible prophecies about things that are going to happen or both have happened and are going to happen and I like to say that the book of Daniel is like the twin book of Revelation Which is the last book in the Bible and when you take those 2 prophetic books the book of Daniel in the Old Testament and the book of Revelation in the New Testament, it provides you with this panoramic picture of prophecy.

And so we're going to spend some considerable amount of time both in the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation during this seminar.

And so I want to start in Daniel chapter 2 and give you a little bit of a picture here of the historical setting of this apocalyptic book.

So Daniel chapter, we're actually going to spend some time in a prophecy in chapter 2, but Let's start in chapter 1 and take notice of the very first words in this prophetic book.

And the Bible reads, 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 with some of the articles of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his God and he brought the articles into the treasure house of his God.

Now the whole book of Daniel begins with basically bad news and the bad news is that the people of God, the chosen people of God, the Hebrew nation are now subjected, they are under another authority, another kingdom.

And the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, has attacked Jerusalem, he has invaded the country, he has now destroyed the city and the sanctuary of God's people and he's brought captives back to Babylon, among whom is Daniel.

Daniel was a young man at this time, probably not even out of his teens, and together with many others he is now taken to a foreign nation, to the nation of Babylon.

And you know, whenever 1 kingdom would conquer another kingdom, what they would often do is they would take the precious objects of that kingdom with them.

And so this is exactly what we read here in the introduction of the book of Daniel.

They took the articles of the house of God.

The house of God here is referring to the sanctuary, the temple, which was built in Jerusalem.

And inside of the temple they would have many objects of gold that now were taken by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.

And for the kingdom of Babylon, this was a great, great victory.

They actually considered that their gods were supreme over the gods or the God of the Hebrews.

They thought, now we have conquered, look, our gods are stronger than yours.

So the outset of the book is kind of like, it starts in a very negative way.

The very reason why the Hebrews were taken captive, if you read it in connection with the rest of the story of the Old Testament, it's very clear that they had moved away from God.

They were no longer serving God and they were no longer the people that were putting him on display in the world at that time.

As a matter of fact, there was a lot of corruption and they had moved away and they were worshiping other gods.

And so God in his mercy withdrew his protection from the people and allowed this to take place in order to captivate their attention, to get their attention as to what really matters.

And so here at the outset of the story, we see that God's people have lost their kingdom, and they have also lost their sanctuary, their temple has been destroyed.

But the whole story within the book of Daniel is how the kingdom and the sanctuary are restored.

Not only the kingdom in the days of Daniel, but rather also looking at a bigger picture of God's eternal kingdom, God's final kingdom, and how that will be restored.

And also, not only looking at the temple in Jerusalem, but our attention in the book of Daniel is also drawn to God's sanctuary, another sanctuary, not an earthly sanctuary, but a sanctuary in heaven where God dwells.

And so, the story of Daniel provides us with a local, geographical, real event and story of the past, but it also provides us with a picture of the bigger plan of salvation and how God will ultimately, finally set up his kingdom in the end and how he will ultimately and finally reveal his heavenly sanctuary where God dwells and where he intercedes for each and every 1 of us.

Now, in the book of Daniel, as you start reading the book of Daniel in chapter 1, it tells us about how Daniel, among other captives, was taken to Babylon.

And when he comes to Babylon, he was selected to be trained under the king.

And so he was trained so that he could be 1 of the wise men of Babylon.

And so they selected the best of the young people of the Hebrews, they taught them the Babylonian language, the Babylonian culture in order for them to now be integrated into Babylon so that they could use their talents as young people for the service of the King of Babylon.

And So Daniel is chosen among those to be trained by the king.

And already in the first chapter, it's very obvious that he has a special character because when he is provided with the king's food and the king's meat and the king's wine, he says, no, thank you.

He says, I would rather have a simple and healthy diet than eat the king's meat.

And of course, the caretaker of these young men is kind of astonished and somewhat fearful that if he doesn't eat of the king's table, then perhaps he will be in trouble.

And so Daniel says, but just test me for 10 days.

Let me eat healthy food and let me abstain from the wine of the king and then test us, see how we'll be doing.

And so they're tested after those 10 days and it appears that Daniel is a lot more healthy than the other young men.

And so he is able to continue following his God and his way, and the ways of the Hebrews.

And it is fascinating, in the end of the chapter, of chapter 1, after a period of about 3 years, all these young men are brought together and they're tested by the king, and it says that Daniel and his friends, those that followed the ways of the Lord, were found to be 10 times wiser than the other young men.

And so God already has positioned Daniel and his friends here in Babylon to be an incredible witness and testimony of his power.

And so here they are in a foreign nation, in a land far away, and yet here they are presenting a picture of the true God.

Yes, the kingdom of the Hebrews has fallen.

Yes, they have been taken captive, but this is not the end of the story.

God has placed a witness right in the center of Babylon, right in the center of this adulterous nation, right in the center of a nation that is worshipping other gods, here Daniel is to speak for the true God.

And in the second chapter of the book of Daniel you read about how King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream.

And it's not just any kind of dream, it's a very special dream.

It is a dream about what the future is going to hold.

Now in the morning, maybe you've experienced this yourself sometimes, you know you had an important dream.

You know that you dreamt something that was significant, but you don't remember all the details.

He wakes up and he knows he's had an important dream.

He needs to know what this means, but he doesn't remember all the details of his dream.

And so the Bible tells us that he gathers together all his wise men, his astrologers, and all of these magicians, and he says, I want you to tell me what I dreamt and the meaning of my dream.

Now, the magicians and the astrologers and the wise men, they say, King, just tell us the dream and we'll give you the interpretation.

And the king says, no, that's not what I pay you for.

You're not just going to tell me the interpretation, you're going to tell me what I dreamt.

And so they are like, but King, this is a too hard of a thing.

You know, what use do I have of these magicians and astrologers and all of these wise men if they can't even tell me what I dreamt?

And so the news reaches Daniel, and Daniel is 1 of those wise men, and so his life is now threatened.

And the Bible tells us, remarkably, that he goes home after he hears of this news, and you know what the first thing is that he does?

It would probably be the first thing that you and I would do as well.

He gets on his knees and he prays and he says, oh God, please reveal to me the dream of the king and the interpretation of the dream.

And the Bible tells us in Daniel chapter 2 as he goes to sleep that God gives him the very same dream that he gave to Nebuchadnezzar.

And not only does he receive the dream, but he also receives the meaning or the interpretation of that dream.

And so the next day, Daniel makes his way to the palace of King Nebuchadnezzar, and he comes before the king, and the king is now very curious.

I can imagine that he's sitting on the tip of his throne, and he's just waiting for the interpretation.

And he says, can you, Daniel, can you tell me what I dreamt?

And Daniel says, no, I can't, but God can.

He says, no, I don't know, but God has revealed to the king what is in the future.

And the dream that you had King Nebuchadnezzar is about the days to come.

And so he starts explaining the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar.

In the dream of Nebuchadnezzar he saw a great big image.

And the image was made of different material.

The thigh was made of brass, and the legs were made of iron, and the feet were made partly of iron and partly of clay.

And so he starts explaining this dream, this metal man made of different material, and the king is like, that's exactly what I dreamt.

And not only did he dream about this big image made of different material, but he also dreamt about a big rock, a stone, that hit the image on the feet, and then the image crumbled to pieces.

Prophecy’s Signs of the Times

So we're going to get right into our subject for this evening, prophecies, signs of the times.

And it is important for us to understand that in order to grasp the prophecies, we need to look at history as well.

Sometimes we need to understand the past in order to understand the future.

Because the prophecies that we're looking at in God's Word, these prophecies have been recorded for us for many hundreds of years ago, and yet now they are coming to pass in our very lifetime.

Yesterday we looked at the book of Daniel.

We'll be going back to the book of Daniel on several occasions during this seminar.

The book of Daniel, written about 500 years before Christ, is dealing not only with events that transpired at that time, but it's also dealing with events that we are dealing with in our times.

We talked yesterday about how the book of Daniel starts with a kingdom that has been lost.

Jerusalem has been invaded by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and Daniel amongst others, he was a young man at that time, was taken from Jerusalem to the city of Babylon.

And so there's a kingdom that has been lost.

There's a sanctuary, a temple that has been destroyed in Jerusalem, but the book itself is dealing with more than just historical events during the time of the prophet Daniel.

It's dealing also with an ultimate kingdom restored in the end of time, the very kingdom of Christ when he comes back the second time.

So we're looking at a historic story, but it has a bigger picture to present about times in which we are living and things that are ahead of us.

Now you're going to see that this is a pattern that we find in various places in the Bible.

Now I want to take you to the book of Matthew tonight and we're gonna look at a couple of passages in the book of Matthew.

Matthew is the first book in the New Testament.

You will know that there are 4 gospels which record the life and teachings of Jesus.

We have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and each they give us a perspective, a different perspective of the life and teaching and work of Jesus.

And in the book of Matthew, the first of those Gospels, there are teachings in there regarding the times in which we're living.

There's actually a special chapter that we'll be looking at, Matthew chapter 24, that deals in particular with the signs of the times.

The times, the things that we should be looking at that will transpire in this world before Jesus comes back.

But before we go to Matthew chapter 24, and we're gonna go there in just a moment, I want you to take notice of a little bit of the structure of the book of Matthew.

Because in the book of Matthew, what Jesus does is he announces his kingdom.

Now, you might think, you might ask, who is Matthew?

Well, Matthew was actually a tax collector that became a disciple of Jesus.

And so he was with Jesus for 3 and a half years and he reported all that he Experienced and he wrote it down and this became the book of Matthew the gospel account of the disciple Matthew and he had a transformed life as he experienced Jesus and lived and saw all that Jesus did for those 3 and a half years, from his baptism all the way till the death on the cross.

Now Matthew, he records quite a few of parables that Jesus spoke.

Now a parable is an illustrative teaching that reveals deep truths about the kingdom of God.

And there's actually a chapter in the book of Matthew, chapter 13, that records a lot of the parable teachings of Jesus.

And there's a phrase that repeats itself several times, and that is the phrase, the kingdom of heaven is like.

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, and the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, and the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, and the kingdom of heaven is like a pearl, and the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet.

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