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Amazing Facts

Doug Batchelor

Dream of the Empires

This presentation is brought to you by the Friends of the Amazing Facts Ministry.

There are few humans whose intellect could match the genius of Leonardo da Vinci, 1 of the greatest artists and inventors of all time.

Probably he's most renowned for his Mona Lisa painting.

Leonardo also excelled in the fields of science, engineering, anatomy, botany, architecture, geology, zoology, mechanics, and many more.

In many of these areas, he was far ahead of his time.

For example, he drew designs that were the equivalent of a helicopter, 1 for parachute, a diving suit, an armored tank, and many other fascinating inventions of our day.

He even built a robot capable of walking, sitting, and moving its jaw.

And some of his robotic concepts are currently being put to use in robots for space exploration today.

Looking back, it almost seems like Leonardo could see into the future.

We might wonder if anyone really can predict the future.

In ancient Babylon, the prophet Daniel informed King Nebuchadnezzar about the God of heaven who revealed the deep and secret things of the future.

So join me now, friends, as we discover what God's Word really says about the mysterious beasts from the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation.

Our study for tonight is called Dream of the Empires.

And we're going to literally be looking at a panorama of Bible prophecy tonight that you find in Daniel chapter 2.

Just to give you the story, a little background of what's going on.

Nebuchadnezzar II, but everyone calls him Nebuchadnezzar because no 1 knows much about the first, King Nebuchadnezzar was 1 of the greatest kings of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

He actually conquered Israel and he told them as long as they obeyed he'd give them a certain amount of freedom, but they continued to rebel.

They tried to get Egypt to fight with Babylon so they'd be freed from Babylon.

He carried away captive a lot of the people.

The Temple of Solomon was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar.

He Took all the gold and the brass and the treasures and brought it back to Babylon.

And along with the treasures and the people, he took some of the the brightest young people in the kingdom because he said, you know, the Jews were brilliant.

They were good architects and they understood language and David was a poet, musicians, and he always took the best of the best from his kingdom.

They'd kind of go through some college training and intensive training so they could serve in his cabinet as counselors to help him administrate.

And among the 4 young people that he took, you had Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

In fact, God had told through a prophet, King Hezekiah, Isaiah the prophet told King Hezekiah, because of your pride, when the Babylonian ambassadors came to visit, everything that they looked at is going to be carried off to Babylon, including your descendants.

The Bible tells us that the king of Babylon, it foretold this in Isaiah, the king of Babylon will make some of your descendants eunuchs in his palace.

So Daniel and his friends were taken to Babylon along with thousands of other Jews.

Nebuchadnezzar had conquered all of the surrounding kingdoms and Babylon became incredibly wealthy and powerful.

And 1 night he was wondering how long this kingdom of Babylon was going to last.

And this was on his mind, evidently, and he fell asleep.

And he had a dream, and this dream was very vivid, that gave him an outline of the history from the time of Nebuchadnezzar up until the second coming of Jesus.

Now, why did God give this Babylonian king this dream?

It says there is a God in heaven who reveals, what's it say there in yellow?

And he's made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the what days?

It says he, through this king, is revealing something that is coming in the future.

And the Lord chose to give this dream to Nebuchadnezzar and then he ultimately calls a Hebrew prophet who reveals what is coming.

And just like the pharaoh of Egypt had a dream And he didn't know what the dream meant.

And he ultimately had to call his wise men and they didn't know what the dream meant.

Finally, there was a Hebrew that was in prison and he was able to interpret the dream, even though he was a captive in that land.

Well, this sort of repeats itself in the story here that we find in Daniel.

Now, I tell you what, before I get to the second question, let me read the first few verses right from the Bible.

And if you have your Bibles, you can turn to Daniel 2.

I'm going to read the first few verses here.

Now, in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, Nebuchadnezzar, he's the king, had dreams, and his spirit was so troubled that his sleep left him.

Then the king gave command to call the magicians, the astrologers, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans to tell the king his dream.

So they came and stood before the king, and the king said to them, I've had a dream and my spirit is anxious to know the dream.

So the king said, okay, time for you to earn your pay.

And they said, okay, let the king tell us the dream and we'll tell the interpretation.

And the king says in verse 5, my decision is firm you shall make known the dream to me and its interpretation or you'll be cut in pieces and your house will be made an ash heap.

However, if you tell me the dream and its interpretation, you'll receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor.

Therefore, tell me the dream and its interpretation." And you can imagine the consternation of the wise men when they said, you know, we could concoct some interpretation for you, but you want us to tell you what you dreamed.

Well, they said, the answer for that only belongs with the gods.

To destroy, execute all of the wise men in Babylon.

If you execute all the wise men, what do you have left?

When Daniel learned about the death decree, what did he ask of the king and what did he tell his friends?

Daniel went in and he petitioned the king.

He said, give me time that I might tell the king the interpretation.

So he goes to the king and he asks for time.

He might have, that might have been a day.

The reason I say that is there's prophecies in Daniel where it talks about a time, a times, and the dividing of a time, and that represented 3 and a half days, which in prophecy is 3 and a half years, but that's a subject for another night.

So it may have been he said give us 24 hours and the king thought well you know if I kill all the wise men I got to find new wise men they're hard to find and I would like to know what the dream means." And the king interviewed Daniel and his 3 friends in chapter 1, so he found them 10 times wiser than all the other wise men in the kingdom.

So the king thought, well 24 hours, sure.

So after that petition, the Bible said, Daniel then went to his house, and he made the decision known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions.

Now Daniel and his friends say, we need to know what the king dreamed.

They had a real heartfelt prayer meeting.

And in that prayer meeting, they believed that they might seek mercies from God, and this is Daniel 2 17, concerning this secret.

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Dream of the Empires

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