Page 3, number 2. The things that John saw. So now we're setting the tone for the entire book of Revelation, but more than Revelation, we're seeing the entire prophetic setting here. Verse 12, Then I turned to see the voice that spoke to me, and having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. And in the midst of the seven lampstands, one like the Son of Man. So obviously we're talking about Messiah. But notice how Messiah is clothed. He's clothed with a garment down to his feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and his voice as sharp as the sound of many waters. He had in his right hand seven stars. Notice John's going to explain all this in just a second. "...And out of his mouth went the sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance was like the sun shining in its strength." So that's what Jesus looks like right now, okay? "...And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying to me, Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last." Isn't that interesting? The first and the last is a term that Isaiah had in Isaiah 44 and Isaiah 45. I am He who lives and was dead. And behold, I am alive forevermore." It's interesting, when I get into a conversation with a Jehovah's Witness, I ask them in this text, who's speaking? They say they often say the Omega, the first and the last. I say, that's correct. The Almighty is speaking, isn't He? Isaiah 44 and 45. That's what John's picking up on. I said, continue reading. And He says, and He was dead, and behold, I am alive. I said, how did Yahweh die? So he can't die. I said, but yet Yahweh is speaking in the text, and yet Yahweh is telling you he died. You've got a problem here. Because if Jesus is not Yahweh, how is God going to die unless he's a man? Because God's the eternal one. So that's usually the text you want to take a Jehovah Witness to is Revelation 1 and show them that Jesus is claiming to be Yahweh and Yahweh has died and come back to life. Anyway, it's interesting. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and death. Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this." That's your key phrase right there about the whole prophetic scenario. What John has seen, like right now, the things that are, the current church age, and the things which will take place after this, this is prophecy. That's chapter 4 on. The mystery of the seven stars, now he's explaining the seven stars, which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands, which you saw, are the seven churches. So, very simple. Every time you see a prophetic image like this, John will typically explain it, if it's never been explained before. So, a book of Revelation is not a hard book. Anytime you see the word stars, typically it refers to angels, okay? Angels are always stars, unless there's something different. Now, when you see in the book of Revelation, I saw a star that had fallen. What does that tell you? It's a demonic or a fallen angel, okay? In the book of Daniel, it says we will be like stars. We will be like angels in the sense that we will shine once we're resurrected, yes. And interesting that, I would say probably 95% of them are ridiculous, or just made up. But there are some things that people see. There's no doubt about that, that happen in the skies. Well, if it happens in space, in the skies, it's obviously the abode of the demons, and they can manifest themselves. And it's possible that they have manifested themselves to fool people. And I think the perfect scenario of what they're getting people set up for is when the tribulation comes, how are people going to explain the supernatural phenomenon that's going on on the planet? Let's just take one example. Think about this. Let's talk about fallen stars. As we're talking about stars, let's talk about fallen star. Revelation 9 talks about a demonic horde that attacks people, and you visibly can see them attacking people for five months during the tribulation. They have the body of a horse, the tail of a scorpion, they have hair like a woman and a face like a man, and they have crowns on them, and they have wings, locust wings looking like things. These things are visible, folks. to the naked eye. For once, humanity will be able to see what a certain class of demons look like. And these demons will go and attack people for five months, unbelievers, and affect them and torture them, but they will not be permitted to die. So you tell me how a secularist that doesn't believe in God is going to explain a horse-like scorpion tail with a man's head, woman's hair, attacking people. They're aliens. You already know what the culture is set up, what the world is set up for. These are not fallen demons. That's from mythological literature. These are aliens. We're under alien attack and the aliens are here. You can see that. So to your point, this whole thing about alien invasion, it's all playing right into it. The fact that the rapture, I've always joked about it, but there's no other excuse that they're gonna say where we disappeared to. We were taken up by aliens. The aliens took us up. Close encounters of the third kind type of thing. And we were gonna be examined because we were the crazy ones or something like that. You know, they're gonna make something up like that. Okay. This passage then is discussing Jesus in his role as king. So this picture of Jesus is Jesus in His third office, He's standing among the lampstands, ready to judge the world with the tribulation. That's the picture of Him. Okay, in Jesus' offices, He has three offices, and He does not hold them simultaneously. He holds them chronologically. prophet, priest, king. So when he was here in the first coming, he functioned as a prophet, the prophet Moses predicted, Deuteronomy 18. After the cross and then into the ascension, Christ now is our Melchizedek high priest. He is functioning as our high priest, our sympathetic high priest. He's in that office now and he's always living to make intercession for us. But John sees the third office and that Jesus now puts the garments on a king. And so when you see Jesus come back in Revelation 19, he's wearing a king's clothing and he has many crowns on his head. So John is saying the king is about ready to execute judgment. And this is what's going to ensue after this. So that's how we start off the book of Revelation, that Jesus is ready to commence with judgment. So go to the next page, page four. And here are the instructions we want to focus in on, because this is the outline of prophecy. If you understand this, you'll understand the whole prophetic scenario. Write the things which you have seen. He just saw Jesus, right? The vision of Jesus as King ready to execute judgment. And the things which are right now the church age, where he's at right now, That's Revelation 2 through 3. And the things which will take place after this, Revelation 4 through on. So that's the whole scenario. The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand are the end of the seven golden lampstands. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. And the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches. OK, so the seven churches are not only historical churches. We're going to study each one of them in just a couple of weeks from now. But these seven churches are not only historical churches, but because of the promises made to them as an interpretive hermeneutic issue, you must understand them as encompassing the entire church age. Because there are promises made to individual churches that span past the church, that are global promises to the church and global warnings to the church. So when you talk about the churches in Revelation, We're not talking about simply the remnant of believers. We're talking about Christendom. which can include false churches that call themselves Christians. The Laodicean church is the apostate church. They call themselves Christian, but they're truly not saved. The church of Thyatira is the Catholic church. The church of Sardis is the Protestant church. It has the appearance of being alive, but yet it's dead. Why is that? Why is the Protestant church talked about as being alive, but yet is dead? Because it's simple, the Protestant Church and the Reformation never broke away from the state. And in order to be a member of the Protestant Church, Lutheranism, Calvinism, whatever, in Geneva, Anglicanism, whatever came out of that, that was always married to the state. So therefore, if you were a member of Germany, you're automatically a member of the Lutheran Church. So the two went hand in hand. So what Jesus is saying, you have good creeds, you seem to be alive, but because you have married the church with a stake, you have an unregenerate populace in your churches. They're not saved, they're dead. And so the Protestant church, which is Sardis, is a picture of deadness. The Philadelphia church is a picture of being alive. It's the remnant church that is alive. that's going to be raptured. And he talks about that to Philadelphia in Revelation. Anyway, that's the layout. And notice that these angels are attached to churches. Did you notice that? They're not pastors. They're angels. Why are these angels attached to these churches? Does every church have an angel? Yes. What are they there for? They're witnesses. Who executes judgment in the book of Revelation? Angels. The angels who are watching this serve as witnesses. They're watching what the churches do. They're watching how they function. And the churches that are apostate, who are left behind, will be consumed in the judgment of the tribulation by these angels who witnessed it. It's not, again, you know, God knows what's going on. He's omniscient. He knows that. But everywhere in scripture, you always find two or three witnesses. And God is bringing witnesses and he uses the angels to witness against these apostate churches. And then they will be the ones who execute judgment on them. So that's why the angels are attached to the churches. Michael is attached to Israel. Michael's job is not only to protect Israel, but to also sometimes execute judgment that needs to happen on Israel. And he will do that sometimes. That's how angels function. Anyway, we move on chapter two, the times of the Gentiles. Let's get a definition of terms, and basically Jesus gives what the definition of the times of the Gentiles means. Luke 21, 24 says this, and they will fall by the edge of the sword and be led away captive into all nations. Talking about the nation of Israel because of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and the unpardonable sin. and Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." So basically Messiah interprets what Daniel talks about and the idea then is this, this is a very long period of time from the Babylonian exile in 596 BC to the second coming and specifically Jerusalem, the city of Jerusalem, will be in the control of Gentiles. until the second coming. Now this doesn't mean that temporarily Jerusalem can fall back into Jewish hands. Temporarily, in 1967, it fell into their hands temporarily, and they basically gave it back. Moshe Dayan gave it back. It fell into their hands temporarily. So it doesn't mean that temporarily it can't go back into their hands. It just means that it's only temporary. and that the Gentiles will dominate Jerusalem. Okay, so let me give an example. In the book of Revelation, second Thessalonians, Daniel chapter nine, all talk about a rebuilt temple for Israel. Indeed, they will have a rebuilt temple in the tribulation. So that means and implies that at some point in the future, Israel will regain the Temple Mount. They have to. How are they going to rebuild their temple without it? they'll have temporary control because then at the three-and-a-half-year mark, Antichrist desecrates it and scatters them and he does the abomination of desolation. So even for three-and-a-half years, they have temporary control. So the idea of the times of the Gentiles is Gentile domination of the city of Jerusalem. And that won't come to rest until Messiah comes back. Does that make sense? And that's a good point because, like you say, for Israel to have the Rebid Temple, you've got to get Islam out of the way. You know, I've heard theories like, well, there's going to be a mighty earthquake and it'll break up the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. No, because they would go right back and rebuild it. It's not that. I think when we see that, we're going to watch chronologically Psalm 83 and Gog and Magog is going to decimate Muslims. and there's not going to be any more threat from them. The Whore of Babylon also will not allow that either, and the One World Government won't allow it. So, I think what you're going to see is the threat of Islam needs to be eliminated for all this to go down. And the bigger issue is to bring Antichrist on the scene. So again, I want you to start seeing Islam, or the threat of Islam, as a satanic crisis for the world system to solve. Because that's what's going to happen. And eventually the temple will be rebuilt. That's right. Yeah, I... Absolutely. That's why don't give money to it, please. I know organizations will hound you for money. Isaiah said it's not sanctioned by God. That last temple is not sanctioned by God because He ordains temples. The next one to be built is to be built by Messiah Himself, not Israel to build it. So it's a temple that's not sanctioned by God. It's going to be desecrated. So the Tribulation Temple, if you hear the Temple Mount faithful ask you for money, do not give that money. Do not give that money to them. They already have enough things already. They have enough money, they can put that temple up in three months. With the resources they have, the money that's been given from other Jewish sources, they're ready to go. But do not give to that because you're going to be in violation of Isaiah. So you're a good point on that one. Okay, with that being said, then let's jump into Daniel chapter 2. So now that we have a good understanding of the times of the Gentiles, let's see how this whole history will unfold. Daniel chapter 2 starts this, and we jump into Nebuchadnezzar's dream, as you know. You, O king, that's Nebuchadnezzar, were watching, and behold, a great image. This is Daniel interpreting the dream. This great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you, and its form was awesome. So again, this is man's view of these kingdoms, these four Gentile kingdoms that Daniel is is predicting or interpreting for Nebuchadnezzar. This image head was of fine gold, that's Babylon, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, and its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. So the first thing you should notice about the image of this Gentile domination, it goes from more valuable, precious metals to lesser value, but notice it goes from weaker to stronger in the metal. Okay? You go from gold to iron, obviously iron's a stronger metal, but iron doesn't have the value that gold does in the splendor. So if you go to more glorious to less glorious, weaker to stronger. Okay, that's important to understand about these empires as we get into the last empire, the beast empire, in a bit. You watch while a stone... I said last week, every time you see the word stone, Messiah, Messiah. Every time you see stone in prophecy, it's Messiah, Messiah. A stone was cut without human hands. which struck the image of the feet of iron and clay, the last phase of the Gentile empire, and broke them in pieces." So it's Jesus, the Messiah, is going to destroy the last empire. Now notice this. This is important because all the other empires will fall by the hand of another empire. But the final phase of this Gentile empire will be destroyed by God himself, the Messiah, the God-man. The iron, then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors. And the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found, utterly gone from the world scene. Talking about the kingdom age when Messiah rules. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain, and then the key word mountain always means government, government. government and filled the whole earth. So the government took control of the entire earth. So that mountain, that government, had control of the entire planet. Finally, we will finally reach the theocracy where Jesus is in control of the entire planet by his millennial government. His millennial government has two branches. We'll study this when we study the millennium, but let me give you a picture of it. The millennium has two branches of government, a Gentile branch of government and a Jewish branch of government. The Jewish branch of government occupies the millennial Israel. The 12 disciples will be the heads of those specific tribes, just like he promised the disciples. David will be a vice-regent in Jerusalem with Messiah. And a lot of other biblical characters from the past will take their roles as governors and princes distributed throughout the nation of Israel during the millennium. The Gentiles will serve outside of Israel over the Gentile world and be ruled by governors who have been resurrected. And who do you think those people are? The Bible-believing Christians and Gentiles from the past. You see why Messiah's government must wait. It can't start now because you have to have resurrected governors and princes and kings in order to rule over other places of the planet. This is where your reward is for being a Christian. And how faithful you are determines where and how much extent of rulership you will have in the kingdom as the Gentile branch of government. And so it's important what you do. It's important to be faithful because he says, you're faithful with a few things. I will put you over 10 cities in the parable of the meanest. And that's true. You will be governed. Now think about the ultimate government. You have a resurrected individual that's righteous. That king or prince cannot be tempted or bribed and cannot do evil. They make the perfect governor. And they don't need to sleep. They don't get sick. They don't get weak. In the resurrected form, they make the ultimate governor. And that's the role you and I will play. As Messiah rules from Jerusalem, we represent a Gentile form of government. And the other people we will be governing are mortals. We are immortal at that point in time. Okay. So anyway, that's a little bit off to the side, but let's go back to this in verse 36. This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. You, O king, are the king of kings, for the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory. So it's talking about Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian kingdom that took over the Assyrian kingdom. 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, has made you ruler over them all. you are this head of gold." So that's Babylonian and he was given a lot and very, very glorious reign. But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior. Notice the term inferior to you, to yours. Inferior, remember, gold to silver. Then another, a third kingdom of bronze, again, a more inferior, which shall rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron. And as much as iron breaks into pieces and shatters everything, the strength of this is enormous. It shatters and breaks everything. And like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all others. So that's the strength of that last kingdom. Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided." Now notice this, that last kingdom, he's talking about the, we call it the Roman Empire. He's saying it's going to start out in one, but it's going to break into two. in that passage right there, and he's already telling you that eventually the two breaks into ten. So he's giving you phases of the Roman Empire. United, two, ten. If you think about the image of the statue, it's his legs that splits into two, east and west, and then the ten toes. I'll break this out in just a second, but if you can follow that, let's continue on. 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. They will not be able to coalesce very good together, it will not be united very well. We'll talk about that in just a bit. 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. And in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. This is the Messiah's kingdom. And the kingdom shall not be left to other people. It's not going to be handed down. It's going to be with Messiah, who rules and reigns forever. It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. And as much as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure." OK. So Nebuchadnezzar, in 596, his empire starts the time of the Gentiles. So that's who you're dealing with, that's who Daniel's interpreting the dream with, and therein lies the interpretation of the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had. Okay, so with all that, I think you got the symbol, the stone, the mountain. What I want you to do is turn to page six, and I want to show you what the outline he has just given you says. Page six, top of page six. From this, just this passage. Daniel teaches the following chart. The Babylonian Empire, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Hellenistic Empire, which are the Grecian Empire, the Fourth Empire, and in that one passage he teaches that there are at least, so far, three stages. A united stage, a two-division stage, and a ten-division stage, and then the fifth one is the Messianic Kingdom. So far. So far. Because as you know, Daniel's going to get revealed another dream and it's going to add to this. You're going to see more stages with that last empire. But so far, that's where we're at. So here's the deal. Where are we at in the fourth empire, at least in what Daniel is given? The what? Yes, this two-stage division has already happened. We are now waiting for the ten-division stage to start. But, we have one more stage before the ten-division stage that Daniel will introduce later on. So, this is how you interpret prophecy. You build off the previous one. And so now we're going to jump into Daniel 7, and he's going to build off of the previous one with another vision. Let's read Daniel 7. In the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and his visions of his head while on his bed. Then he wrote down the dream telling the main facts. Daniel spoke saying, I saw in my vision by night and behold, four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. The great sea is the Mediterranean. The four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other. Okay, notice, we already know that the Babylonian empire, Medo-Persian, Hellenistic and Rome. The fact that they came from the Mediterranean is important. That limits the prophecy in scope. So you can't have some off-the-wall crackpot on the internet tell you that, well, the fourth beast is America, or North America, or it's China. That's crazy, because he tells you the location is coming out of the Mediterranean, the Fertile Crescent area. The sea closest to these empires was the Mediterranean. So that limits the scope in this. And four great beasts came up from the sea, each different from the other. The first was like a lion and had eagle's wings. It's referring to the Babylonian Empire, obviously. This is the view from God's standpoint, by the way. Not from man's standpoint, but from God's standpoint. I watched till its wings were plucked off. And it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on two feet like a man, and a man's heart was given to it." Referring to Nebuchadnezzar, obviously. And suddenly, another beast, a second, like a bear, it was raised up on one side and had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. Obviously that's Medo-Persia. The fact that it's raised up on one side shows a lopsided alliance that Persia is stronger than the Medes. The fact that it had three ribs in its mouth refers to Lydia, Egypt, and Babylonia in which it overtook. And they said thus to it, Arise, devour much flesh. After this I looked and there was another like a leopard, which had on its back four wings like a bird. The wings on the back were, when you see wings on an animal it means swift, it's fast, very fast. This is obviously the Grecian Empire under Alexander the Great, who conquered the world by what, 30 years old. The beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it. As you know, when Alexander the Great died, his kingdom split up with his four generals. I think it was Lysimachus, Cassander, Ptolemy, and Seleucid. They took his empire and divided it four different ways. That's exactly what happened. After this, I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast. Notice what this is. Dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong. Remember the iron? It had huge iron teeth. It was devouring, breaking in pieces, and trampling the residue with its feet. It was different from all the other beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. Now, this is interesting. I want you to underline why is it different. Number one, he can't describe it. He didn't say it's like a leopard. He didn't say it's like a bear. He says it's indescribable. It's strong. It's devastating. I saw 10 horns on it. There is something Daniel was hinting at here in this prophecy that this last empire is different than what Babylon did. It's different than what the Medes and Persians did. And it's different than what the Grecian empire did. Right off to the side on your notes, imperialism. Imperialism. In fact, I know we always say the revived Roman Empire, and I know that's the nomenclature we're all used to, but to be more accurate, that this last Gentile Empire is the empire of imperialism. That's what it's different about. Now, what does imperialism mean? What the Roman Empire started doing, which was different than any empire ever had done, is started putting their own guys in charge of certain territories outside of their country. Before, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, would always take somebody from that area, a native, and say, we're gonna appoint you to be the king, and you're gonna be a vassal to us and pay taxes, but you're still a native. Rome was the first empire to practice imperialism. You know the guy very well, who was the governor of Judea. Not Herod, Herod's a native. Pilate. The fact that Pilate's on the scene is showing you imperialism. It's showing you they had troops there. They had garrisons there. They were on the scene with their people, the Romans, in a foreign country. Enforcing foreign laws on a people. What was the big complaint in the Gospels with the Jews to the Romans? Taxes. Bingo! Imperialism is now raising its head. With the UN wanting to tax American citizens, whether it's on carbon credits, or Agenda 21, or whatever the issue may be, what you will start seeing is imperialistic tactics put on Americans, and you won't have a say in the matter of it. They'll do gun control. They'll take away the rights of parents to their kids. This climate change is not going away. They're going to do carbon emissions taxes. And you'll be taxed by a foreign entity that has no national sovereignty here. That's what's coming. Right. Our Constitution will be eliminated by imperialism. Imperialism will trump the Constitution one day. I hope we're raptured before that.