Join us in this episode of Bob and Yart Live as we dive deep into the Book of Daniel and uncover the powerful lessons within. We explore the fascinating prophecy found in Jeremiah chapter 51 regarding the fall of Babylon at the hands of the Medes and Persians. Listen as we discuss the symbolic parallels between ancient Babylon and divine judgement for profaning the sacred temple. Discover how these themes reverberate through history and offer insights applicable to our modern lives. The infamous feast held by Belshazzar serves as a poignant reminder of the dangers of pride and idolatry.
00:00:00 Introduction and Invitation to Study Daniel
00:19:42 Daniel’s Interpretation and Reminder of Nebuchadnezzar
00:26:35 The Downfall of Nebuchadnezzar and Lesson in Humility
SPEAKER 01 :
Greetings to the brightest audience in the country, and welcome to Bob and Yart Live. Today, we’re getting into a study of the Book of Daniel done by my father and predecessor, Bob and Yart. And if you want, you do not want to miss this. If you want to get all of Bob and Yart’s Bible studies for just $10, you can get that at nyart.shop that has all of these Daniel studies. You do not want to miss those. But today, we’re getting into this study of Daniel, So exciting. Hey, if you can’t afford that $10, email us, service at kgov.com, and we will find a way to get you those Bible studies. Hey, this is Daniel, Bob Enyart’s study of Daniel. So exciting. I’ll see you on the other end.
SPEAKER 02 :
Before we turn to Daniel 5, first please open to Jeremiah. Jeremiah, and we’ll look at Jeremiah chapter 51. Now if you were already in Daniel, just turn to the left two books. Before Daniel is Ezekiel, and before that is Jeremiah. So Jeremiah, toward the end of the book, chapter 51, and we’ll look at just a few verses because they talk about Babylon and and Israel, and then the nation that’s going to destroy Babylon or overcome their empire and absorb Babylon. That’s going to happen by the Medes and the Persians, the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians, although it’s primarily the Medes that do the job of taking Babylon. So Jeremiah chapter 51 verse 2, I will send winnowers to Babylon. What are winnowers? They’re not widowers. If you are harvesting wheat, there is the wheat kernel and the wheat germ and that which is valuable. And then there’s the chaff, the part of the plant that was useful for the wheat to grow, but then it’s just trash. And that part dries up and it will blow away. So either you have fans and the fans create enough wind that it blows away the chaff, that’s the hard part, or you do it with a natural wind and they’ll literally throw the grain up and the chaff will blow away. And so the winnower, the winnower’s fan, that is like blowing away the chaff, blowing away the trash. So I will send winnowers to Babylon who shall winnow her and empty her land. For in the day of doom they shall be against her all around. And verse 5, For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, by his God, the Lord of hosts, though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel. So notice two things. The Babylonians, they had their God. They worshiped Baal, although they called him Bel, B-E-L. They called their God Bel, but where was Bel when Babylon was destroyed? Bel was nowhere to be found. Israel’s God, Israel says, I do not forsake my people, although, truth be told, they deserve it, because the land of Israel is filled with sin, and it grieves me, and it’s difficult for me to continue taking care of them, but I am, and it’s because I love Abraham. I love Abraham, and therefore I love his children. And so for the love of the fathers, I am being merciful to the sons and the daughters. In verse 8, Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed. Well for her. Let’s go to verse 9. We, and I believe this is God’s people, We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Forsake her and let us go everyone to his own country. For her judgment reaches to heaven and is lifted up to the skies. Her judgment. The Lord has revealed our righteousness. Come and let us declare in Zion the work of the Lord our God. Make the arrows bright. Gather the shields. The Lord has raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes. So here is Media and Persia, two neighboring nations, join up effectively to become the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians. But here, even though Babylon was subsumed, it was absorbed into the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians. It’s primarily the Medes that end up taking Babylon. So we see that here. The Lord has raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, for his plan is against Babylon to destroy it, because it is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance for his temple. So God cares about his temple. That is the place that God said, on earth, build a house to me. You kings, you have your homes. You wealthy people, you have your homes. They have paneling inside. You got wood paneling, and I don’t have a house. So build me a house in Jerusalem, which is the temple. In Daniel chapter 5, Nebuchadnezzar’s son, Belshazzar, he’s… having a drunken party. He’s showing off how wealthy he is, how powerful he is. And he says, oh, you know those implements that my father plundered from the temple in Jerusalem? Go get those and let’s drink out of them. We’re drunk. Let’s be drunk drinking out of the gold implements, the bowls and the utensils that the priest used in the temple. let’s drink from them to mock the God of Abraham, to mock the God of the Jews, and God will not be mocked. So it was a big mistake, but it’s pointed out right here, Babylon will be destroyed because it is the vengeance of the Lord and the vengeance for his temple. And ultimately, his temple, that house, was a symbol of the temple of the body of Christ. because no building can truly house God. No building could really contain God, but God put on himself a tent, like the tabernacle, The temple was the permanent version of that tabernacle, just like Christ took on a body, and then he was buried, and then he was raised with an incorruptible body, a permanent glorified body. And so the temple and the tabernacle that preceded it are symbolic. They prefigure God coming and dwelling among men in the tabernacle of Christ’s body, which now he has his glorified body, which is like his temple. So God is angry in the vengeance of the Lord against those who would profane his temple, really those who would profane him and his son. So now please turn to Daniel chapter 5. Belshazzar… This is the son of Nebuchadnezzar II. And remember, Daniel’s name, Belteshazzar, means the wife of their god, Bel, who would protect the king. So this is, they dropped the wife part to name his son. And Nebuchadnezzar named his son Belteshazzar, that his god will protect the king. So Belshazzar the king made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in the presence of the thousand. While he tasted the wine, Belshazzar gave the command to bring the gold and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple which had been in Jerusalem, that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. So this is a great insult to God. The debauchery, the drunkenness was done with a special flair toward telling God that they could care less who he is. And that is not wise. That brings all men to destruction, sometimes more quickly than at other times. verse 3, then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple of the house of God, which had been in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. So Nebuchadnezzar brought away Jews in captivity into Babylon and relocated them. And God was angry with Judah, southern Israel, just as he had been angry with northern Israel. The ten tribes in the north were carried away by the Assyrians. They never returned. The two and a half tribes in the south, in Judah, they were carried away. But for the most part, it was a temporary captivity of 70 years. And then some, not all, but some were able to return. They could have all returned, but they didn’t all want to. They had a nice life in Babylon with the wealth and the riches. Just like when the Israelites were delivered through the Red Sea, God wanted to bring them to the promised land, but they end up in the wilderness because they didn’t trust God. And they said, we want to go back to Egypt. We like the leeks and all the onions, the cucumbers. We want to go back. And so sadly, they liked Babylon. They preferred Babylon more than the promised land that God had offered to them, the land of Canaan. So many stayed in Babylon afterward. And Babel’s influence on Jewish teaching and language can hardly be overemphasized. They changed much of their language, their vocabulary. Their calendar, they changed the calendar, the months of the year, renamed them based on the Babylonian names. So Nebuchadnezzar, God used him to bring judgment and punishment against Judah. And verse 4, so they had these implements from the temple that Nebuchadnezzar had sacked. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone. The Bible says, and sometimes it’s almost humorous, it says what? You have a God you made with your own hands and now you’re praying to it? Does it answer you? Does it even hear you? And at one point, the Bible describes how a workman makes an idol out of wood, a wooden idol that then he bows down to and prays to. It says he cuts off a branch from a tree and with half of the branch, he cuts up wood logs and he makes a fire and he cooks his lunch with half of the branch. With the other half, he makes an idol and he prays to it. And God is pointing out, isn’t this stupid? Isn’t it stupid to make a fire for your lunch with one half of the branch and the other half you think you make your God? And does your God answer your prayers? Of course he does not. They’re not living. They’re stone idols. They’re unchanging, if you will. They have no feeling, so they’re impassable. And they can’t really change, so they’re immutable. And that’s what the pagan Greeks thought the real God was like. And a lot of Christian theologians adopted that, like Augustine and Aquinas and Luther and Calvin, and to this day, many. So they took the implements that were used, the gold vessels for worshiping the living God, and they were getting drunk from them and used them to commit their idolatry to their pagan gods. So this would get the true God angry. Verse 5, “…in the same hour the fingers of a man’s hand appeared and wrote opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace, and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.” And that had to scare them more than your typical horror movie would scare a normal person. I mean, that’s especially you’re drinking a little, you’re mocking God. And then, and this is a description of the king’s palace where we don’t have a recollection, but people then would. And it would be known, even by word of mouth, what the king’s palace was like and the king’s throne room. And so apparently there was a great lampstand on one wall. And then on the other wall facing it, that’s where a hand appeared. And the hand wrote on the wall. And that scared everyone. Verse 6 says, Then the king’s countenance changed. Countenance, that’s his face, his visage. And you could see a lot about what somebody’s thinking by looking at their face. And so the king’s countenance changed, and his thoughts troubled him. I thought he didn’t have a care in the world. I thought he was the most powerful man in the world, wealthy, had all the wives he wanted, all the concubines. But one little thing happens and he’s all of a sudden distraught. So that the joints of his hips were loosened and his knees knocked against each other. The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. Now, I don’t know… How many times they’ve done this in the past and it really doesn’t help. So still, they’re still doing the same thing that doesn’t work. But that’s no different than unbelievers today who look to the things that do not work like stone idols. The king spoke, saying to the wise men of Babylon, Whoever reads this writing and tells me its interpretation shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around his neck, and he shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. Wow, that’s quite an offer of a reward just for interpreting what these words say. Purple is a color going back to antiquity that was symbolic of royalty. And that’s because purple was expensive to get. Colors were spoiled today. We buy clothing and blankets and curtains of any color imaginable. And if you want to do the dyeing yourself, no problem. You just go buy dye. And if you want to paint, you just buy the paints in a thousand colors. And the same thing with colored markers and crayons. But we have to remember that these things are all made from the raw materials that God has given us. And it’s quite a challenge to make these kinds of dyes. And so purple was especially difficult to come by, so it was expensive. And if you remember, the first person converted to believe in Jesus on European soil was a woman who was a seller of purple, Lydia. So now the king is saying, look, I’m going to treat you like royalty. So verse 8, now all the king’s wise men came, but they could not read the writing or make known to the king its interpretation. Then King Belshazzar was greatly troubled, his countenance was changed, and his lords were astonished. The queen, because of the words of the king and his lords, came to the banquet hall. So the word went out, some extraordinary thing has happened, and there’s writing up on the wall. So this queen, probably his main queen, his main wife, came to see what all the hullabaloo was about, and the queen spoke saying, O king, live forever. Today they say, long live the king. O king, live forever. Do not let your thoughts trouble you, nor let your countenance change. There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy God. And notice he is called the living God, the holy God, the true God. These are the things that God likes to be known as. Quite often theologians believe attempt to reduce god to how much power he has and that’s it it’s his power his power is the determination of everything and that’s not how god shows it there are not angels forever around the throne saying power power power that’s not it god has a lot of power of course he does he created the entire universe but that’s not what gets god excited What gets Him excited is holy, holy, holy. That He is righteous, He is good, and He is loving and merciful, and He is humble. That’s what gets God excited. Not how much power He has, but His humility and His love. So this queen remembers that there is a man in the kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy God. And in the days of your father, Nebuchadnezzar II, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him. And King Nebuchadnezzar, your father… Your father, the king, made him chief of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers. Inasmuch as an excellent spirit, knowledge, understanding, interpreting dreams, solving riddles, and explaining enigmas were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar, now let Daniel, whose name means God is judge, Now let Daniel be called, and he will give the interpretation. So Daniel is called, and he gives the interpretation, and God does judge. Verse 13. Then Daniel was brought in before the king. the king spoke and said to Daniel, Are you that Daniel who is one of the captives from Judah, whom my father the king brought from Judah? So this Belshazzar, he inherits the throne. What does he know? And he says, Are you one of those guys I heard about, the wise men from Judah, the Hebrews? Are you the one named Daniel? He says, “…I’ve heard of you, that the Spirit of God is in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you.” And I like this figure of speech. It’s used through the Bible. Light in the physical realm, photons, they illuminate so you could see what is around you. When there’s darkness, you can’t see what is around you, so you are ignorant. And light illumines so that you can see and know the reality around you. Well, light in that sense, physical light is used as a metaphor for wisdom, for understanding, for being able to comprehend reality. So the physical photons illuminate so you could see the physical reality, but God himself is the light that enables us to understand true reality, which the physical reality is a part of true reality, but it’s just a part because there’s a spiritual dimension. We are body, soul, and spirit, and God has existed in eternity past as a spirit. So, King Nebuchadnezzar says that light is found in you and understanding and excellent wisdom. Verse 15. Now the wise men, the astrologers, have been brought in before me that they should read this writing and make known to me its interpretation, but they could not give the interpretation of the thing. And I have heard of you that you can give interpretations and explain enigmas. Now, in the Bible says that it is the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of kings is to search out a matter. God likes putting things in mysteries. He likes doing that. He enjoys it. And he did that with the body of Christ. He had a plan for the body of Christ that he kept secret from the prophets. and even from the apostles until he began to reveal it through the apostle Paul. So God likes mysteries because for people who are humble, the mysteries cause those people to hunger and thirst after God. It’s like seeing a mystery, reading a book. and you want to know so badly what the truth is, what is the outcome, so you keep reading for another 300 pages, and you finally find out. And God knows that, that we’re like that, we’re inquisitive, so he fills our lives with mysteries, many of which are revealed in the Bible, but many others are not. So Daniel could explain enigmas, Now if you can read the writing and make known to me its interpretation, you shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around your neck. Daniel’s probably thinking, I’ve been around this block before and that chain of gold could easily become a noose. So I’m not all excited about the reward you’re offering. A chain of gold around your neck and you shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. Then Daniel answered and said before the king, Let your gifts be for yourself, and give your rewards to another, yet I will read the writing to the king and make known to him the interpretation. Now remember to his father who had some humility. I mean, he was about as messed up as they come, but like David, when he did such a wicked thing, he would repent. King Saul, when he would do a wicked thing and he was exposed, he dug in. His pride hardened his heart. He would not repent. But David would do terrible, commit terrible sins, and he was confronted, and it would break his heart, and he would be sorry before the Lord. So Nebuchadnezzar, there was a lot more going for Nebuchadnezzar than his son Belshazzar. And so when the interpretation is against Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel says, King, I wish this were about your enemies. But it’s not. It’s about you. He doesn’t care that much for the kid, you know. So verse 18, O king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar, your father, a kingdom and majesty, glory and honor. And because of the majesty that he gave him, all peoples, nations and languages trembled and feared before him. Whomever he wished, he executed. Whomever he wished, he kept alive. Now, he was going to kill Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. That doesn’t mean what he was doing was righteous. He did a lot of wicked things as king, but then he would repent and and humble himself before God so he was sadly he was like a lot of us who we know God we do what is evil but then we’re sorry it’s much better to be more like let’s say Joseph in the Bible where we don’t have a lot of evidence of Joseph being rebellious and disobedient So there are great examples we can set our eyes on, but the ultimate example is Christ, who never let anyone down, who never did wrong at all. He is God the Son. So Nebuchadnezzar was powerful. Whomever he wished, he kept alive. Whomever he wished, he set up. And whomever he wished, he put down. But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne and they took his glory from him. Then he was driven from the sons of men. His heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. They fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven. If you sleep out in the fields, then in the morning you wake up and you’re wet because of the dew. You sleep in a home with a roof over you, and you wake up in the morning and you’re dry. So it’s a lot nicer to have a roof over your head. Well, he was living like an animal. If you reject God, then what is the alternative? You’re just an animal. And so God gave him an illustration. His life, he became a parable. This is what becomes of you without God. So his body was wet with the dew of heaven. until he knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men and appoints over it whomever he chooses. Now, God did something similar with two other men.
SPEAKER 01 :
Stop the tape. Stop the tape. Hey, we are out of time here on KLTT Radio. If you want the entire thing, you can find it in two different ways. One, you can go to kgov.com, click on the store, and purchase the Daniel Bible Study, which is a little bit expensive. I’ll be honest. It’s a little bit expensive. Or for way cheaper, you can go to nyart.shop. and get all of Bob Enyart’s Bible studies for just $10. You do not want to miss that. That’s decades of Bible studies for just $10. What a steal. If that’s too expensive for you, reach out service at kgov.com, and we will find a way to get that to you. No charge. We want to be a blessing to you. Again, enyart.shop. That’s E-N-Y-A-R-T dot S-H-O-P. Hey, may God bless you guys.
This Theology Thursday episode tackles age-old misconceptions and emphasizes the importance of understanding biblical accounts in their historical and…
