Have you ever felt as if you can’t help being “you”? Maybe you don’t like the way you are and feel like there’s nothing you can do about it. Today Shawn Boonstra shares the logical reason for the way you feel.

<p>Have you ever felt as if you can’t help being “you”? Maybe you don’t like the way you are and feel like there’s nothing you can do about it. Today Shawn Boonstra shares the logical reason for the way you feel.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Voice Of Prophecy

Shawn Boonstra

Who’s Your Daddy

Have you ever felt like you can't help the way you are and you don't like yourself?

Today, on the Voice of Prophecy, I'm going to show you there's a good reason for the way you feel.

At some point in our study of how the human brain works, we became painfully aware that all this stuff we experience as kids has a real bearing on who we are and how we act and behave as adults.

So for example, if you lived in a hypercritical environment where nothing ever earned your parents approval and you just couldn't do anything right, that's more likely to make you a little hypersensitive to criticism as an adult, or to make you less confident in a situation where you're being scrutinized, like usually happens at work.

Or maybe it makes you more critical with your own kids.

You bring your whole life to every decision you ever make and sometimes you don't even know why you do the things you do because you can't possibly remember the events that helped program your brain to be the way it is right now.

So there might be things that make you angry or scared, and you don't know why.

But somewhere along the way you were programmed for those responses.

Something made your brain fire signals down the same neural pathway over and over and over, making it easier and easier to react the same way to the same situation.

Now for the most part, that's not a bad thing.

If you're learning to play the piano, you want your brain to act that way.

You want to repeat the same experience again and again until it's second nature.

But with your emotions, that kind of programming can actually set you up for trouble.

Let's say your mother angered you with something she did years ago.

Then decades later, when your wife does something even remotely similar, your brain fires off the same kind of angry response.

If your response barely makes sense to you, then imagine how your programmed response might seem to somebody else.

You have reacted to the same set of circumstances the same way for years and years and years, so your behavior seems natural to you.

But to the other people in the room, you might seem irrational.

You see, they don't have the background, they don't have the same kind of programming you do, and something that irritates you to no end might be perfectly enjoyable to everyone else in the room.

This is Pavlov's dog salivating when they hear a bell ring, because once upon a time in the distant past, that bell meant dinner time.

This is a 15, 000 pound elephant who can't break free from a tiny little stake in the ground, because that same tiny stake used to hold him down when he was a baby, and now his brain says, look, it's impossible to escape.

Of course, in the 21st century, none of this is news.

In fact, you're probably wondering, Why in the world is he even discussing this stuff?

But what some people don't think about is the way that human decisions can affect the whole human race over time.

You see, it's not just our own personal experiences that pile on top of each other, the same thing happens for the whole human race.

And that's an important key to understanding some of the biggest themes that show up in Bible prophecy.

In Daniel chapter 7, we have this astonishing prophecy of world empires, represented by this series of animals that come up out of the sea.

You have a lion, which represents the Babylonian empire.

There's a lopsided bear, which represents the Persians.

Then you have a leopard, which represents the Greeks, and finally, this ferocious looking animal that defies all description.

And of course, that animal represents the Roman Empire.

Bible prophecy gives us 4 world empires, and if you've never heard anything like this before, it's time to read the book of Daniel because the details will absolutely blow you away.

Honestly, it was actually the book of Daniel that finally convinced me, beyond all shadow of a doubt, that God is real.

That there's something more than just the observable universe.

You can't read Daniel and just explain it away.

Now, the fourth beast in Daniel 7 has 10 horns, which represent the fragments of the Western Roman Empire after it collapses.

It represents the barbarian tribes of Western Europe.

And out of those 10 horns comes another little horn, which represents a whole lot of trouble for the human race.

In fact, it proves to be the same thing as the beast described in Revelation 13.

Now today, I don't have time to identify that little horn or try to pin the tail on the Antichrist.

That's actually what our Discover Bible School is for.

What I want you to think about today is just this 1 point.

God sets the table for understanding last day issues by showing us this incredible progression of human empires over hundreds and hundreds of years.

And when the beast power, this little horn, finally appears, it's actually described as the product of all those kingdoms.

It's like all those kingdoms rolled into 1.

Just like your life experiences have made you the person you are, all of human history has made this little horn power what it is.

This power is the grand climax of human rebellion against God.

Here, let me show you from the book of Revelation.

If you read chapter 13 of Revelation, right after you read Daniel 7, it is obvious that Daniel and John are talking about the very same thing.

But where Daniel sees 4 separate animals coming up out of the water, John sees the same 4 animals, but they're all lumped into 1 being.

He says, Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion.

The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority." Now you'll notice, it's the same 4 animals described in Daniel 7.

But instead of showing us a bunch of kingdoms that follow each other, now these same animals are being used to represent the ultimate product of all human kingdoms, the Beast of Revelation.

It's this blasphemous religious and political power that exerts itself over the whole human race.

In the book of Daniel, we see these human kingdoms rise and fall until they produce the little horn.

But in Revelation, we see that same little horn power being described as a conglomeration, a mash-up of all those empires.

This final beast is part Babylonian, part Persian, part Macedonian, and part Roman, and it's entirely human.

It's almost as if all those other kingdoms were just test runs, laboratories for the final crisis.

And right after we take a short break, I'm going to come back and unpack that idea just a little bit more for you.

This might actually prove to be really important for your life.

Life and its daily challenges can weigh us down even when we have the best of intentions, leaving us with more questions than answers.

Is it possible to have true peace and happiness in life?

Are you searching for answers to this and other of life's most challenging questions?

The Discover Bible Guides will help you find the answers you are looking for.

Visit us at BibleStudies.com or give us a call at 888-456-7933 for your free Discover Bible Guides.

Study online or on our secure website, or have the free guides mailed right to your home.

Discover Bible Guides are our free gift to you.

Find answers in guides like The Secret of Happiness and Is God Fair?

You'll find answers to the things that matter most to you in each of the 26 Discover Bible guides.

Visit BibleStudies.com and begin your journey today to discover answers to life's deepest questions.

You are listening to the Voice of Prophecy.

And today we're talking about the way that thought patterns and behavior actually accumulate over time to create the way people and organizations behave later on in life.

It's true for individuals, and it's true for the human race as a whole.

You can see it in the way that different cultures react to the same event in different ways.

So for example, 1 culture thinks that whistling while you work is a sign of a sunny disposition.

But another culture thinks that whistling, especially indoors, is a sign that you are a troublemaker.

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Who’s Your Daddy

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