Episode Transcript
Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, go therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to go teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through australian and international speakers. And here is today's presenter, Renee Timmins.
You know, God has given us a passion for our life. It's very simple to be like him. This morning we're going to ask ourselves, are we following the pattern? Before I begin, I'm just going to start with a prayer and just ask that you bow your heads with me.
Our Father, God in heaven, we just ask that you are here in our presence today, that you open our hearts and our minds, that we can be more like you. As I present this message, God, we ask that. I ask that not my words, but your words be presented.
I ask this now in your name. Amen. John Tyndall.
Well, John Tindall was born in the United States of America in 1880, and he was raised in a Baptist family. When he was about nine years of age, his brother sadly passed away and died. And he had a lot of questions around this because people said that Bobby went to heaven, but he said, I saw you put him in the grave and his eyes were closed.
How can he be in heaven? And then when he went to church on a Sunday, he heard about hellfire from the preacher and he thought, I don't want to go to heaven if that's what my God's going to be like. And so as he got older and became a teenager, he decided he was going to abandon Christianity completely, to the point where he described himself as an atheist evangelist. You know, there's so much confusion in this world about what happens to us when we die.
There's movies and books that say that you go straight to heaven. There's religions, many religions, that say, you go straight to heaven. Other people say, no, you don't.
You're reincarnated. And then others say, no, that's not what happens. Our loved ones are living all around us in different realms.
There is so much confusion about the body, spirit and the soul Christian I have for you today, does it really matter what you believe? Yeah, it does. I agree. It does matter what you believe about what happens when you die.
And this is why. Matthew 24:4, it says, Jesus answered his disciples, Watch out that no one deceives you. And then further down in Matthew, in Matthew 24:24, it says, for false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive even the elect.
If it were possible. Is it possible to deceive you? Is it possible to deceive me? Well, if I don't have a clear understanding of what happens when I die, I could possibly be deceived. The pen of inspiration Like Dean, Ernesto spoke this morning in inspired writing, she says this that he, Satan, has the power to bring before men the appearance of their departed friends.
The counterfeit is perfect. The familiar look, the words, the tone are reproduced with marvellous distinctiveness. Many will be confronted by the spirits of devils impersonating loved ones, beloved relatives and friends and declaring the most dangerous heresies.
Wow. Can that really happen? Has it really happened? So loved ones. Sorry.
So loved ones will impersonate friends and family and will try to fool us. You know, the Bible is very clear about the state of the dead. When you look closely, there's nearly 50 times in the Bible where it describes death as asleep.
It's a metaphor. So it's an unconscious. You don't know what happens because it's like a sleep state.
In Ecclesiastes 9, 5, it says, for the living know that they will die, but the dead know. The dead know nothing. In Psalms 115, verse 17, it says, the dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence.
So it describes death as a sleep. So simply put, once a person dies, they are no longer aware. Sadly, no one was able to explain the truth to John.
If somebody came to you today and asked you what happens when you die, can you explain it to them? So John was a very inquisitive, deep thinker. He was a very intelligent man, and he started studying journalism and law. However, in about 1907, some friends came to him and said, hey, we're going to go off gold hunting, gold mining.
Do you want to come with us? And he thought, oh, that sounds like a good idea. Good way to get rich quick. And so off they went.
And on the way, one of his friends said, we can stay at a friend of mine or this old guy that I know. His name is Papa Bell. Now, he's a lovely old man, but he's very weird because, number one, he lives way out in the country.
Number two, he. He goes to church on the Saturday Sabbath. And number three, he doesn't eat meat.
Well, it didn't really worry John. He thought, oh, that's okay. And when they got to Papa Bao's place, they told him what they were going to do.
And Papa Bao thought, hey, this sounds like a good idea. I might come along with You. Well, John didn't want an old guy slowing them down, so he tried very politely to dissuade him, but papa Belle ended up going along the way.
Papa Bao from way out in front would say, hey, guys, what's taking you so long? Hurry up. We haven't got all day. John was really intrigued by this.
How come this old man who doesn't eat meat, he lives in the middle of nowhere? How come he's so fit and healthy? And so we asked him, hey, papa Belle, where do you get your strength from if you don't eat meat? Papa Bao answered him by asking a question, well, where do you get your strength from? And John replied proudly, oh, well, I eat beef. And papa Bao asked yeba, where does the cow get its strength from? And John said, the grass. Hmm.
You know, people say that we get our strength or our protein by eating meat. Is that correct? Kind of. Kind of.
Let me explain. So an elite athlete by the name of Rick Roll wrote this Proteins consist of 20 different amino acids, 11 of which can be synthesised naturally by our bodies. The remaining nine, we call them amino essential amino acids, and they must be ingested from the food that we eat.
So, technically, our bodies require certain amino acids, not protein per se, however. But these nine essential amino acids are hardly the exclusive domain of the animal kingdom. Now, get this point here.
In fact, they are originally synthesised by plants, and they are found in meat and dairy products. Only because they've been eaten by the animals does that make sense. So I asked you this morning, would you prefer the original source of the protein, the plants, or the secondary form, the animal? Now, Dean Ann Estelle spoke about the light that had been given to Ellen White, you know, in 1868, she had the first major vision on health.
And it talked about how meat causes inflammation, which we know it causes inflammation and which leads to cancer and heart disease, two of the biggest killers in our world today. Now, that was in the mid 19. The mid 1800s, over 150 years ago.
She was given this light. Do you think research supports this now? Hmm? Well, it does. There's a lot of research that supports this.
And I've only. I'm only just going to show you a couple of articles that I pulled. You know, this one that says, eating meat raises risk of heart disease, diabetes, and pneumonia.
This one here, I thought this one was quite interesting, actually. It says. And this is from the New York Times in 1907.
And it says that meat causes cancer because it creates inflammation in your body. And your body goes from an alkaline state to an acid state. Okay, so go and do some research about that.
Because we've been as a health team on this big journey about, but why? Why does it do this? And because I always like to ask that question, but why? And it says there, a century later, many people still haven't heard the news. God says in Leviticus 17:10, I will set my face against the person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood.
Now we know that when we eat the meat, the blood is in it and this is the life force. Ellen White went further and said, tea, coffee, beer, wine and spiritus liquors, they should never be used. Water is the best liquid possible to cleanse the tissues.
She went further, just like the video said. And they had that little snicker and that little laugh. And it said in 1870 that sugar and milk shouldn't be mixed together, just like we saw in the story today, because it ferments in the stomach and sugar clogs the system.
You know, it's like the biggest legal drug, sugar, and it clogs our system. In 1899, she said it wouldn't be long. It wouldn't be long.
This is 1899, it wouldn't be long. That milk and dairy products would no longer be safe. Do you think we're at that time now? You know, if I'm honest with you, cheese was a big struggle for me.
I really liked eating cheese. I liked the taste of it. It was a social thing to do.
You sit down with your friends and you'd have cheese on crackers and dips. You know, T.C. campbell, who did the China Study, who specialises in the effect of nutrition on long term health, said this casein, which is the main protein found in dairy, in fact is the most relevant chemical carcinogen ever identified.
That's a big statement. What is a carcinogen? Well, a carcinogen is a substance that is capable of causing cancer. There is our link.
He went further on and he said this. I know of nothing else in medicine that can come close to what a plant based diet can do. In theory, if everyone were to adopt this, that's a plant based diet, I really believe we can cut the cost of, we can cut the health care cost by 70 to 80%.
Isn't that amazing? Wow. What we eat is paramount. So research has caught up to this, science is caught up to this.
And look at all the documentaries and there's many more. This is just a Few that talk about the plant based health, the plant based whole food diet and the benefits of it, we would call that the Eden diet, wouldn't we? As Seventh Day Adventist Christians, in Genesis 1:29, God says, See, I give you every seed bearing plant that is upon all the earth and every tree that has seed bearing fruit, they will be yours for food. Plant based whole food diet.
Now if you are wondering, well, where can I get some good advice about this plant based whole food diet? Here's three amazing books. Now if you haven't read them regularly, I challenge you, go and read them again. If you haven't read them at all, I encourage you to do so.
But I do want to say they come with a warning. And the warning is simply this, they will transform your life. Friends, I ask again, are we following the pattern? One day while John was out in the water searching for gold, he sprained his ankle.
So unfortunately he had to remain back at Papa Bao's house. And so he decided, because he was a bit of a cheeky guy, he decided he was going to test this Christian guy and see what he was really like. And he was going to be deliberately obnoxious.
But Papa Bao continued to be polite and courteous. You know, when people challenge us, how do we act? This is challenging for me too. You know, my words and my actions aren't always right.
You know, are we following the pattern? Are we being like Jesus? Well, eventually Papa Bowles said to John, I'm going to go out and look for gold. You stay here and rest. And he threw him a book.
And he said, why don't you read this book and I'll come back and see you in a couple of days. Well, John read the book and when Papa Bell came back, John had a lot of questions. What do you reckon his first question was? Who's Alan White? Who's Jesus? Ah, yes.
He went back to that original question when he was nine that nobody could answer. And he asked, what really happens when you die? And so Papa Bell sat down and he gave him a Bible study. And over the next few days he had many Bible studies because John had so many questions.
And then at the end of that, John was converted. He said, this is amazing truth. And he was baptised and became a Seventh Day Adventist.
And he was so passionate and he wanted to share this good news that he'd found with everybody that he decided to go and do the ministry. And as he was about to do it, someone said, well, in Loma Linda, they're about to start a medical missionary training Course, why don't you go and try that? Now, in the simplest form, Papa Bell had been a medical missionary evangelist. And you're probably going to say, well, what's a medical missionary evangelist? Well, and do I have to be a doctor? Because it sounds like I have to be.
No, you don't have to be a doctor. You don't have to be medically trained at all. Simply, medical missionary work is where you combine the gospel with the health message.
It's as simple as that. And you do service for other people. And this is a fundamental part of being a Christian.
We follow the pattern that Jesus set for us in Matthew 4. 23 and in Matthew 9:35. The Bible sets out this pattern and it says Jesus went through the towns and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.
So he was the medical missionary we are called to pattern our life after Jesus. I love this. Here Alan White writes, God stands before us as the pattern man.
He is our pattern. He is our example. So off John goes to Loma Linda, and while he was in Loma Linda, he was just about to graduate.
Alan White turns up, this is in April 1910, and she has a really important vision that she wanted to share. So she gathered the leaders, some of the leaders of Loma Linda College together, and she said, I have this vision that God has put on my heart that I need to tell you. It's this vision here.
It says, during the night of February 27, 1910, the unworked cities were presented before me as a living reality. And I was plainly instructed that there should be a decided change from the past methods of working. I urged that companies be organised and diligently trained to labour in our important cities.
That was our pattern. It was really simple. She concluded, though, with this thought gospel, medical missionary, evangelism, companies of workers for the large cities.
I lay this responsibility upon your shoulders. She's speaking to the leaders. Make it happen.
And then she said this. God will hold you accountable. Wow.
God will hold you accountable. So the leaders looked around and thought, who are we going to get to do this job? And they saw John Tyndall, and John Tyndall prayed about it, and he believed God was telling him that he needed to do this. He was a passionate Seventh Day Adventist and like I said before, he wasn't a doctor or medically trained.
He got a little group together, just like the pattern said, and out he went. His group was small. It consisted of him, his wife and one other person.
They were sent to one of the hardest places in California to evangelise. It's a place called San San Bernardino. And him and his little band started teaching the health message and doing evangelistic programmes.
They ran a 10 week programme and when it had finished, 16 people got baptised. Amazing. And they continued with the same structure and on average they had 32 people per campaign getting baptised.
That is amazing too. The pen of inspiration says this, that doors that have been closed to him who merely preaches the gospel will be opened to the intelligent medical missionary. God reaches heart through the relief of physical suffering.
So John started to reflect on this and he said, I don't think I have been completely true to what Ellen White has said, so I need to go back to Loma Linda and I need to spend to the people about what we're doing. He managed to get 20 people on his team. These people included teachers, Bible workers, prayer warriors, advertising people, medical workers, people who could do cooking demonstrations and food salesmen.
Food salesmen. And they extended their times in the area from four to six months. They got to know the community, they cleaned up people's yards, mowed lawns, ran kids programmes, worked with the sick using natural remedies, prayed for families and ministered to the communities.
They ran health meetings and they finished with an outreach programme. Now things really started to change. Baptisms on average went up to 123 per campaign with a retention rate of 25%.
Amazing. You know, throughout history we've been given the same example. You think of the apostles.
The church boomed when they did that. They preached the gospel, they served the community and they went out and healed. You think of the time in the 12th century with the Waldenses, the gospel boomed at the same time.
Did you know that they were medical missionaries? I didn't even know that, but I went and did a lot of research on this and they were medical missionaries. I'll just catch up here. And in the great controversy, Ellen White says that the pastors not only preached the gospel but they visited the sick.
You know, in the 1800s when our Seventh Day Adventist church was being established and we had a peculiar Sabbath message and this health reform message, our sanitariums were world renowned. Over the 12 years that John Tyndale did this medical missionary work, he baptised nearly a thousand people. Praise God.
Friends, we are called to do the same, follow the same pattern. Follow the leader. He is the way, the truth, the light and the life.
He is our example. Why do we need to do this? Because Jesus is coming soon. Jesus is coming Very soon I'm just going to jump through these here.
I believe a storm is on the horizon and that storm is very close. Signs tell us everywhere that Jesus is coming. You know, when I open the newspaper or turn on the news, which I don't do much, but when I do, when I just look around me, I see the rumblings that Jesus is coming soon.
The Maui fires in Hawaii, a whole island decimated. You know, this was going to be the first smart island in the world and it was going to be governed and policed by AI. They had made that decision at the beginning of this year.
The continual conflict between Russia and the Ukraine and this also this relation, this conflict and this relationship between the west and China, Russia and now Korea. What about the continual brainwashing of our kids through ridiculous movies, but also the satanic influences in it? You'll know exactly what I mean by the circle on our eye. You know, what about this climate lockdowns.
And we know where this is heading. We know this is heading to the Sunday law. What about the lgbtq, xyz, abc? You know, it just keeps going.
Digital currency, economic instability, the rising interest rates, fuel costs, 15 minute cities. We know the rumblings have started. Time is short.
We need to share Jesus with this confused, compromised and crippled world. It is time to follow the pattern so we can go home. This message was made available by the Masterton Seventh Day Adventist Church.
For more resources like this, visit mastertonsda.nz On September 6, 1934, this headline appeared in the New York Times. Hitler forecasts no Reich ooverturn in next 1000 years.
In the lead up to and During World War II, Adolf Hitler predicted a united Europe in a thousand year world domination. The Thousand Year Reich or Third Reich. He went as far to say this during the war.
See my people, we do not need anything from God. We do not ask anything from him except that he may leave us alone. We want to fight our own war with our own guns, without God.
We want to gain our victory without the help of God. While Adolf Hitler was planning victory, there was one unit in his army that wasn't planning on victory. One captain who believed that Germany was not going to win the war.
We're in the depth of World War II. A German soldier, a Christian Franz Hasel, is making his way with Pioneer Company 699 deep into the Russian front. Hasel was a devoted follower of Jesus, so much so that he throws away his service pistol and carries nothing but a wooden replica in his holster.
He didn't want to be tempted at any point to shoot someone in the name of Hitler's mission. Not only was Hasel a devoted Christian, but he was an avid student of Bible prophecy. When asked by his commanding officer if he thought Germany would win the war at the risk of death for treason, Hasel boldly shared that Germany could never control the world.
How did he know this? All because of a prophecy in the Bible book of Daniel, written two and a half thousand years earlier. Hasel sat down with his commanding officer, opened his Bible and shared a study that would have gone a little something like this. Now, before we go any further, we're going to do something different in this video.
If you want to participate, rather than just consuming this video, you can follow along with me. Simply get out your Bible. You'll notice down the corner of the screen that the next Bible verse that we're going to look at will appear there, giving you enough time to find it so that when we're up to it, you can read along with me and cheque what I'm saying against your own Bible.
Now for the study. Nebuchadnezzar ii, king of Babylon, was one of the greatest military minds and rulers in history. Babylon was the most powerful empire in the ancient world.
Its power was matched by its opulence. It contained one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the hanging gardens of Babylon. Depending which historian you read, they were constructed.
Instructed by Nebuchadnezzar for his median wife. Because she missed the green hills and valleys of her homeland, Nebuchadnezzar was a big deal. Early in his reign, he captured the city of Jerusalem and took captive the brightest of the people to train them up in the ways of Babylon.
One of those people was Daniel, a young man who remained faithful to God. We start our story in Daniel chapter two and verse one. Now, in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams and his spirit was so troubled that his sleep left him.
The king had a dream that really bothered him. Being the most powerful man in the world, not much was outside of his control. However, his dream kept him awake.
He knew that he had dreamed something important, but he couldn't remember the details and he certainly didn't know what it meant. Have you ever experienced this? You dream something but then it vanishes from your mind. Well, when you're rich and powerful like Nebuchadnezzar, you don't need to sit around wondering.
You have people to take care of these things. Daniel 2, 2, 5. Then the king gave the command to call the magicians, the astrologers, the sorcerers and the Chaldeans to tell the king his dreams.
So they came and stood before the king, and the king said to them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit is anxious to know the dream. Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic. O king, live forever.
Tell your servants the dream and we will give the interpretation. The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, my decision is firm. If you do not make known the dream to me and its interpretation, you shall be cut in pieces and your houses shall be made an ash heap.
Nebuchadnezzar knew how to motivate people. It just so happened that the king had people on his staff who claimed to be connected to the gods and could interpret dreams. These supposed wise men could bluff their way through an interpretation of a dream, but to tell the king what he dreamed was a whole different matter.
Daniel 2:10. The Chaldeans answered the king and said, there is not a man on earth who can tell the king's matter. Therefore no king, lord or ruler has ever asked such things of any magician, astrologer or Chaldean.
They were right. No man on earth could say what another person dreamed within the confines of his own mind. But these people were supposed to be connected with the supernatural.
When they can't help him, the king quickly realises he has a bunch of crooks on his payroll and decides to make a spontaneous review of their employment in Daniel 2:12. For this reason, the king was angry and very furious and gave the command to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. This death sentence had serious implication for Daniel and his friends.
Although they were faithful followers of God, and certainly not magicians or astrologers or anything like that, they were included in Nebuchadnezzar's inner circle of wise men. Daniel asked the king for more time. Then he goes home.
Daniel, chapter 2, verses 17 and 18. Then Daniel went to his house and made the decision known to Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, his companions, that they might seek mercies from the God of heaven concerning this secret, so that Daniel and his companions might not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. Did you catch that? Did you catch what Daniel did? When his life was on the line, he and his friends gathered together and sought mercies from the God of heaven.
That means they prayed. What a good lesson for us today. When we want to understand something, especially if we're studying the Bible, it's vital that we ask God for help.
After all, God inspired the writing of the Scriptures, so he is more than able to help us to understand them today. What happened next? Let's find out in verse 19. Then the secret was revealed to Daniel in a night vision.
So Daniel blessed the God of heaven. God is faithful. He answers the prayers of Daniel and his friends by revealing the same dream to Daniel that very night.
Notice what Daniel says after God reveals this to him. In verses 20 to 22, Daniel answered and said, blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are his. And he changeth the times and seasons.
He removes the kings and raises up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things.
He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him. Daniel understood that God will was in control, even though he has King Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful king in all the world, bearing down on him. Daniel says, God, everything is in your hands.
In fact, this gives us an insight as to what the dream is about. He said, God removes kings and raises up kings. We will discover as we go through the dream that it has everything to do with the rise and fall of earthly kingdoms.
Daniel is confident that God has given him the answer and he goes into the king. Therefore Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He went and said thus to him.
Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon. Take me before the king and I will tell the king the interpretation. I have to pause here for a minute.
What a decent man Daniel is. The first thing he says is, don't destroy the other wise men. Even though they're caught up in all this dodgy stuff spiritually, Daniel doesn't want to see them die.
Here we see God's character coming through in Daniel. God doesn't want anyone to perish, but he wants to reveal his love to them. Let's carry on in verses 25:27.
Then Arioch quickly brought Daniel before the king and said thus to him. I have found a man of the captives of Judah who will make known to the king the interpretation. The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Are you able to make known to me the dream which I have seen and its interpretation? Daniel answered in the presence of the king and said the secret which the king has demanded.
The wise men, the astrologers, the magicians and the soothsayers cannot declare to the king. Daniel is standing before the king. Even though there's all this pressure riding on this moment, he takes this opportunity to share an important lesson for the king and for us.
Today, Daniel drives home the pointlessness in relying on astrologers and magicians and soothsayers, or what we would call these days psychics. Unfortunately, many people today even rely on these sorts of people to predict their future. Some of these people might have contact with the spirit world as not the part of the spiritual world that you want to be in touch with.
Instead, we should be talking with the one who knows the end from the beginning. God. Then Daniel says in verse 31, you, O King, were watching and behold a great image.
This great image, whose splendour was excellent, stood before you and its form was awesome. In his dream, the king saw a giant statue and will soon discover this was no ordinary statue. How do you think King Nebuchadnezzar felt when Daniel started describing his dream? Maybe you've had this happen before where you've forgotten a dream, but a conversation or an event triggers your uncommon conscious memory and it all floods back.
Well, that's what was happening to the king, who by now I'm sure is right on the edge of his seat, waiting for the rest of his dream. Daniel 2:32,33. This image's head was of fine 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 clay.
Head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, feet partly of iron and partly of clay. Here we have this statue made up of different minerals. As we go down the statue from gold to silver, silver to bronze, from bronze to iron, the minerals decrease in their worth.
But the dream doesn't end there. Something happens to the statue. In verses 34 to 35, you watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces.
Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed together and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors. The wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found, and the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. We have a stone cut without hands.
This is a supernatural rock that hits the image. Where does it hit the image? Are you following along on your Bible? What did the text say? Struck the image on its feet of iron and clay? We have all these minerals, these metals, this rock. What does it all mean? Sometimes people will take symbols from the Bible and They'll try and fit their own ideas around it, or they'll see a news item and they'll try and fit it into some Bible prophecy that they've heard.
But that's not how God wants us to approach the Bible. God gives the answers within the Bible. This is the same for all prophecy.
We are to let the Bible interpret itself. This is the key to understanding prophecy. Oftentimes within the Bible we have to search for the meaning of a prophecy.
We might come across a symbol and then we have to search the rest of the Bible to see where it is used so that we can decode what the prophecy is talking about. Fortunately for us, today in this prophecy it's easy. We just have to keep reading and God gives us the interpretation of the dream.
Daniel 2:37 39 you, O king, are a king of kings, for the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength and glory. And wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, he has given them into your hand and has made you ruler over them all. You are this head of gold, but after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours, then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth.
You are this head of gold talking to Nebuchadnezzar. Then we go on to see in verse 39 that this isn't just talking about individual kings, but the kingdoms that they represent. The head of gold is a good symbol for Babylon.
Babylon appeared to be impregnable. The city walls were somewhere around 60 metres high and thick enough to hold chariot races on the top. It was Babylon who discovered the system of length, area, capacity and weight.
They divided the day into hours and minutes, things that we take for granted today. They were gifted in music and arts. It was a hub of commerce.
Money flowed in from all around the region. Isaiah even referred to it as the golden city in Isaiah 14:4 that you will take up this proverb against the king of Babylon and say, how the oppressor has ceased, the golden city ceased. It appeared that Babylon had a golden future.
But notice what else Isaiah had to say about it in Isaiah 13:19 20 in Babylon the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans pride will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited, nor will it be settled from generation to generation, nor will the Arabian pitch tents there, nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there. This was a pretty bold prediction.
What can you tell me about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It was absolute, never rebuilt, destroyed completely. God predicted that Babylon, the city of gold, would become desolate.
This is true to this day. In fact, Saddam Hussein of Iraq saw King Nebuchadnezzar as his idol. And he sort of considered himself as nebuchadnezzar2point.
And attempted to rebuild ancient Babylon. In fact, he was so determined to establish a link between his rule and that of ancient Babylon, Saddam Hussein commissioned this mural of himself. But he failed.
God said it would never be rebuilt. Daniel 2:39 but after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours, then another, a third kingdom of bronze which shall rule over all the earth. Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom ruled the world from 605 to 538 BC.
Not very long when you think about it. But because it was such a strong powerful nation, it would take the united force of the Medes and the Persians to overthrow Babylon. In an amazing event that was also prophesied 150 years beforehand in the Bible.
Cyrus, the Persian military leader, diverted the water from the river Euphrates which was running directly through the city of Babylon. He then marched his army through the riverbed under the city walls, claiming victory over Babylon in one night. The Medo Persian empire was the second reigning kingdom.
The chest and arms of silver in the statue. We had the first kingdom Babylon overtaken by another Medo Persia. What does the prophecy say would happen next? Again in verse 39 but after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours, the Medo Persians, then another, a third kingdom of bronze which shall rule over all the earth.
A third world reigning empire would take over from Medo Persia. And that's exactly what happened in 331 BC. The mighty Alexander the Great, at 32 years old leads Greece to overtake the Medes and the Persians.
Interestingly, the Greeks were known for their bronze armour. We are now long past the time of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar and this prophecy is still being fulfilled. What does the Bible predict would happen next? Daniel 2:40 and the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything.
And like iron that crushes that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others. Sure enough, in 168Bc it would be another world reigning power. The iron monarchy of Rome that would take over from Greece.
Like the long legs on the statue, they would rule for a long time, 600 years. It was the Romans that were ruling at the time of Jesus. It was the Romans that persecuted God's people.
When Rome comes to its end, we're now about a thousand years after Daniel recorded the vision. You know, you or I might be able to predict world events a few years in advance, but a thousand years and four empires later, none of us can see that far ahead. But you might be thinking four empires one after the other, with a few interesting parallels with the metals.
Maybe. It was an extremely lucky guess. Well, pay close attention to what Daniel said would happen to that fourth kingdom, Rome, and what would come after it in Daniel 2:41.
42. Whereas you saw the feet and toes partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided, yet the strength of the iron shall be in it. Just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay, and as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.
After Rome, it wouldn't be another world reigning empire that would take over. Rome would be divided up. That's what the prophecy says.
The kingdom shall be divided. And that's exactly what happened. Notice too how Daniel draws attention to the toes.
10 toes. By 476 AD tribes had conquered Rome and 10 of these tribes eventually became what we call modern Europe. The Anglos and Saxons became England, Lombards, Italians, Franks became France and so on.
God says that he can see the end from the beginning. This prophecy certainly proves that when you consider how accurately it has been fulfilled. The amazing thing is this prophecy of Daniel 2 is just the very beginning of the powerful prophecies in the Bible that have been accurately fulfilled.
Now coming back to our original story. Remember Hitler was predicting a thousand year reign and a united Europe. But let's see what the Bible has to say about that in Daniel 2:43.
As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay. They will mingle with the seed of men, but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. The nations would mix together, but they will not adhere or be united.
There have been many attempts through intermarriage to bring parts of Europe together. They would mix but never be united. They would always be separate nations.
Many European rulers have tried to make a united Charlemagne, Charles V, Louis xiv, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm ii, and of course Adolf Hitler. Not to mention in recent times, the European Union. But they've all got one thing in common.
They never made a United States of Europe. Some of them came pretty close too. Kaiser Wilhelm ii, the German Emperor, King of Prussia, had big ambitions for ruling Europe.
Notice what he said of this prophecy that we have been studying in Daniel, Chapter two. Daniel's prophecy does not fit with my plans. I can't accept that.
Where Charlemagne and others have failed, I will succeed. When he came across a statue of the prophet Daniel at the Metz Cathedral in France, he told them to remove Daniel's head and replace it with mine, which they did. But you know what? He failed.
And after he failed, a placard was placed around the statue with the words which are translated, Thus passes the glory of the world. God's word stands. His prophecies are sure.
Which brings us back to our original story. You remember Franz Hasel, the Christian in the German army who told his commanding officer that Hitler couldn't win, Hitler couldn't unite Europe because of what this prophecy in Daniel 2 said? Well, his commanding officer believed him and set up stores of fuel and food as they were advancing deeper into the Russian front. This meant that when he had to retreat, as he knew they would have to, they would be able to survive.
Amazingly, of the 1200 men in Unit 699, only seven survived, one of those being Franz Hasel. Now, if we were to stop here, that would be amazing enough in itself that this prophecy had stopped all these rulers. We could say that the Bible successfully predicted all those kingdoms.
We can trust God's word. But the prophecy didn't stop there. There was a rock cut out without hands that struck the statue at its feet.
And Daniel gives us the interpretation of that in Daniel 2:44. And in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people. It shall break in pieces and consume all those kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.
Who is that rock? Well, the Bible leaves us with no doubt about that. We read in First Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 4, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. The rock is a clear symbol of Jesus.
It will be Jesus that sets up a kingdom that will never fall. This will happen in the days of these kings at the feet of the statue. The time of divided Europe, the time that we're living in now.
And it will do away with all these other kingdoms, breaking them in pieces and consuming them. Friend, we're living at the very edge of human history. We're on the tip of those toenails of that statue.
Everything else has happened in this prophecy, just as God said it would, 100% accuracy. So we can be also sure that Jesus will return and soon. I think we can share King Nebuchadnezzar's response when he said in Daniel 2:47, the king answered Daniel and said, truly your God is the God of Gods, the Lord of Kings and a revealer of secrets.
Since you could reveal this secret, God truly understands the future and has ultimate control of this world. The question is, are you prepared to let him lead in your future? If you're interested in learning more about the Bible and finding out what it means to have a relationship with Jesus, this God who knows the end from the beginning, then visit our website mastertonsda NZ where you can request free studies on Bible prophecy. We also livestream messages every Saturday.
If you have a question or want to talk with someone, you can also contact us on our website. Welcome to Mission Stories for Kids with Uncle Gordon where you will hear first hand accounts of answers to prayer and miracles from God. Oh by the way, I think adults will like this too.
G'day boys and girls. Lovely to talk to you again today. Uncle Gordon here and I've got another little story for you which I hope you'll really enjoy.
Part of my work when I was living in Solomon Islands was to care for our mission clinics. When I first went there we had six throughout the Solomon Islands and we helped the local missions to be able to get another six started. So then I had the joy of going around and visiting them from time to time and supporting the nurses.
I also began to pop in on the doctors who were nothing to do with our church or our mission but were there appointed by government and were paid by government as the medical officers in charge of a particular region. When I'd first call on some of these doctors to say how you going? What are you doing? They were very suspicious. They'd say, who are you? I haven't heard of you before.
Are you from government or are you from where? And I would say no, I'm with the Seventh Day Adventist Church and I've just come to see our nurses at the clinic and see how they're going if there's anything more they need. And I thought that while I was here in this area I'll just say hi to you and let you know who I am and get to know you a little bit too. And I was amazed at how many of those doctors had nobody else to talk to and were just so thrilled to have a friend who they could talk to and share what was going on.
When I was in the Western Solomons this particular time I was talking to one of the doctors there who had become a friend, and he made the comment to me. He said, you nurses are the best. I said, what do you mean by that? He said, oh, they're just wonderful people.
They've been trained so very, very well at your hospital at Atiwifi on Malaita island, and they're just so committed, so dedicated. They are just wonderful people. I said, can you explain more? He said, well, I went over to visit two of those nurses at Bartoona, and while I was there, they had a lady who was there pregnant and about to give birth to a baby.
And I haven't had a lot to do with obstetrics. The doctor said, so I don't know a lot about it, but I realised the baby was breeched. That means the baby, instead of being lined up, ready to be born, was actually across the pathway, across the passage, and the baby somehow needed to turn right around.
But because the baby was fully grown, there wasn't much room for that to happen. And I didn't know what to do. And the nurses said, doctor, do you want to take over here? Because you're the doctor, you can do this delivery if you like.
And the doctor said, no, I know that you're capable. I know you're good. And he said to me quietly, he said, I didn't know what to do.
I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could because I didn't want to be part of a death of a baby because I couldn't do the job properly. So I got out of there. He said, but I heard later what happened.
And he said, those two nurses, I didn't realise that one of them had actually been to Australia and had done bidwifery, had done some extra certificates and was very highly trained and knew far more than I ever knew about births and how to deliver babies. So those two nurses together came in when they knew they had to do something. It was almost too late.
And they both knelt by that patient and they said, God, this patient needs you. This little baby's in trouble now. We can sense there's distress and that baby needs to be turned around.
Please just guide our hands and guide us in what we do so that we can deliver this baby happy and well. And having prayed and having given themselves and the baby and the mother to God, they then tried to turn that baby and those two beautiful lady nurses were able to turn that baby around and to help with the perfect delivery of a bouncing new little boy. And when the doctor was telling me about it he said, they are just so wonderful people, so wonderful because it's not just doing nursing work.
They don't just care about people, they're spiritual people. I don't know much about all of that. He said, he said, but God is with them.
I know God is there with them. And when they're working for people, they know God is part of what they're doing. So I'm just proud to be able to be part of that.
Things that I couldn't deal with, I know they can deal with, you know, boys and girls, I just felt so proud of those ladies. They had become good friends of mine and I was happy the next time I called on them to just tell them what the doctor had told me and just how proud he was of them as well. You know, boys and girls, God works through many people in many different ways.
And many of those nurses who were there, they loved God and they were doing their nursing because they cared about people like Jesus does. When Jesus was on earth, he cared about people and he healed so many sick people. Now, these nurses were trained to do that healing through medicine and through proper care and treatment.
And they realised that because we were all made by God, that he could be part of their healing process if we invited him, involved him. And they were willing to involve God all the time. And they realised that every person who they sent from the clinic now made well, was also a gift of God, plus their medicine.
God was also present. So you can trust God, young people, boys and girls, knowing that God is there and he works through people in all different ways. And if you ever have to go to hospital or have some sickness, we don't always know the outcome, but we can give our lives and those who are nurses and doctors, we can ask God to help them to know what to do and how to do it well.
And the medicine they give, we can ask for that to be used effectively in our bodies to help to restore us. Sometimes God intervenes. Not every time, but we can trust that God only will do the best for us in the long term, knowing that Eternal is ours when we put our trust in Him.
Thank you, boys and girls. You've been such good listeners. You enjoy the rest of the day.
This programme has been brought to you by 3ABN Australia radio.
