2 Responses

1. Hey Joel I know this is a little off topic but I want to get your full understanding of the statue in Daniel 2. Particularly from the thighs down. We all know the head of gold is Babylon, the chest and arms of silver is Medo-Persia and the belly and thighs of brass is Grecia. But just as the 2 arms represent 2 parts of the same empire (Media and Persia) I believe the 2 thighs represent 2 parts of the same empire (the kingdom of the north and the kingdom of the south). I believe the legs of Iron represent Sunni Islam because it conquered the entire area of the kingdom of the north and the kingdom of the south. Rome doesn’t fit here because it never conquered Babylon or Persia. Plus Revelation says two important things. #1 Rome was the 6th empire and the beast is the 8th. #2 it says the beast that “was” before John’s time and “is not” at John’s time (Rome) shall ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition. So the beast that “was” before John’s time (lion, bear, leopard) is the composite beast with 10 horns that is the 8th empire and ascends out of the pit. I believe the feet and toes of iron and clay represent Sunni and Shiite Islam. The iron (Sunni) is still there but it has clay (Shiite) with it in the feet. Prior to the 1970’s Sunni Islam ruled the entire area of kingdoms of the north and south. But with the rise of the Assad regime in Syria and the Islamic revolution in 1979 Shiites had begun to control huge swaths of that area (clay introduced). What’s your thoughts on this?

2. Nice teaching as usual Joel! I pray that God will give me the strength to be a good witness when the time comes. Paul shows we will be killed all the day long just before the resurrection- if you read Romans 8 carefully.

   35Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
   36Just as it is written,
   “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG;
   WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.”

   I kinda picture both the Father and the Son involved at the Parousia/ coming. The language of the Scripture seems to identify both.

   13But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. (1st Th. 4)

   15Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; 16and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; 17for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (Rev. 6)

   9He bowed the heavens also, and came down
   With thick darkness under His feet.
   10He rode upon a cherub and flew;
   And He sped upon the wings of the wind.
   11He made darkness His hiding place, His canopy around Him,
   Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies.
   12From the brightness before Him passed His thick clouds,
   Hailstones and coals of fire.
   13The LORD also thundered in the heavens,
   And the Most High uttered His voice,
   Hailstones and coals of fire.
   14He sent out His arrows, and scattered them,
   And lightning flashes in abundance, and routed them. (Psalm 18)

   As Jesus came before God the Father in the book of Daniel, and as Jesus was the Captain of the Host (and still is) in the OT, there is a separation of the Son and the Father that should not be missed. We see this continuing in Rev. 21-22, where we will not only see Jesus, but the face of God, and the subjection of the Son to the Father in 1st Cor. 15.

   Yes God is a spiritual being, and just like we cannot see into or operate in the spiritual realm now, we will be able to operate and see into both realms when we get our resurrection bodies. Therefore we will be able to look upon and see Gods spiritual form that we cannot see now. Just like we will be able to see angels (who have form in the spiritual realm). At least that is how I see it. 🙂