Amazing Facts

Doug Batchelor: A little amazing fact: Amazing Facts' original speaker, Joe Cruz, was called from Fort Worth. Did you know that? He was a pastor in Fort Worth, and they brought him to Maryland to launch this ministry that's been going for 60 years now. So, we're just very thankful that we're able to come back to where it all started, in a sense, and be able to open the Word of God with you. I want to welcome those who are watching as well as those who are tuning in online. I hope you have your seatbelt fastened tonight because we are going to be talking about one of the most amazing prophecies in the Bible that is dealing with a prophetic king's dream.

If you have your Bibles, you might want to turn to the book of Daniel, chapter two. I'm sure some of you have seen this before. I think we may be bringing out some new things this evening, but we'll give you the background on what's happening here. This is all taking place in the kingdom of Babylon. Babylon is one of the first kingdoms that is mentioned in the Bible, better known as Babel, later Babylon. That was sort of the antithesis of Jerusalem. They're at odds with each other. Babel was founded by Nimrod, who was a mighty hunter against the Lord. Jerusalem was first founded by a priest, Melchizedek, who is a king of righteousness. You see this tension going on between Babylon and Jerusalem all the way from Genesis, and it reappears in Revelation. If you want to understand the prophecies of Revelation, then it's really good to have a foundation in Daniel. Even Jesus said, speaking of the last days, "Reading the prophet Daniel, whoso reads, let him understand." So, we're going to get a little foundation in Daniel tonight, one of the amazing prophecies that gives us sort of a whole scope of Bible history.

The Babylonian people were an amazing people. It's affected human history all through time. They had a massive impact on the history of the world. It was a center of early mathematics, astronomy, technology, innovation. The Babylonians invented the wheel for work carts and chariots, sailboats for trade on the Euphrates. The Euphrates was a big river then, and it's struggling to maintain a trickle at this point. They created cuneiform writing. Babylon developed a unique numerical system based on a lunar calendar with 360 days. To this very day, I'm a pilot; we've got 360 degrees to a circle. If you're going 90 degrees, you know that you're going east. You go 270, you're going west. You go 180, you're going south. We get this from the Babylonians. 60 minutes an hour, 60 seconds in a minute comes from Babylon. They built it around that number, a lunar calendar.

Interesting thing about the numbers in the Babylonian calendar: it often matched up with a cube with 36 candles on it. If you added one plus two plus three plus four, you ended up getting to 666. So Babylon and Rome in the New Testament, in Revelation, are connected with the number 666. The first six Roman numerals—you remember your Roman numerals? Do they still teach that in school? You've got the I is one, the V is five, the X is ten. The first six Roman numerals added up is 666. So, there's a connection there because Rome and Babylon are spiritually connected in the book of Revelation.

In Daniel chapter three, I'm sharing some things that are coming to me right now. In Daniel chapter three, you've got this great test where the King of Babylon tells everyone to fall down and worship an image, and those that do not worship the image should be killed. You know what it says in Revelation chapter 13? Those that do not worship the image of the beast should be killed. This is drawn from the book of Daniel. And it says that image was 60 cubits by six cubits, and according to Hebrew measurements, if it did not give a different number for the depth, it would be the same as the width, meaning it was 60 by six by six.

So, you're going to find that number appearing a lot in Babylonian history. The study tonight is based on a fantastic dream that was given to Nebuchadnezzar, who was one of the principal monarchs of Babylon. He's the one that ruled Babylon at its zenith. He married Amytis, this woman who was a Median princess, and they lived closer to the mountains where they had mountains and trees. Babylon, as it is today, it's out there in the desert where it's flat. She became homesick. He said, "You miss the mountains? I'll build you a mountain. You miss the forest? I'll build you a forest and gardens."

Nebuchadnezzar built one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, which was called the Hanging Gardens of Babylon for his wife. They had some ingenious method of pumping water up from the Euphrates River and creating artificial waterfalls. Some are wondering if this is where Archimedes, the Greek scientist, got his ideas for the pump screw, but somehow the Babylonians were pumping water from the Euphrates up this artificial mountain of stone that was covered with trees and gardens. It was one of the wonders of the world. Other wonders of the world were like the Lighthouse of Alexandria, there was the Colossus of Rhodes—that's where you get the word colossal. The only one surviving today are the Great Pyramids of the ancient wonders. So, Babylon was a majestic city, and God gave this king a dream one night that was outlining the history of the world.

The Babylonian king thought, "How long would this golden empire last?" And God gave him a dream revealing the future, just like God gave the Pharaoh of Egypt a dream revealing the future that was then interpreted by a Jewish captive. The Babylonian king has a dream explaining the future that is interpreted by Daniel, who was a Jewish captive. Here's a big question: Can we know the future? So, we're going to go to our man on the street and our women on the street, and we're going to see what some of the public thinks about the idea. Can you know the future?

Guest (Female): I believe so. I believe that the future is always up to us, so if we want something, we can make it happen. So, yeah, I think, yeah.

Guest (Male): I believe it's not possible to know the future on our own might, but with prayer and supplication and with earnestness, I think we can ask God to help us and guide us to the future.

Guest (Female): I think it's possible if God wants to reveal it to someone. It's possible. Sure.

Guest (Male): I don't know how you would know the future. We don't have control of the future, so I'll say no.

Guest (Male): There's no telling. I mean, it's like you trying to reach your hand saying what's the next dollar going to come from or what's the future has a lot of stuff coming for us, but we don't have a lot of stuff for it.

Guest (Male): I don't think so. I think if you know the future, you can change the future. You know what I mean? So, it's like you might know what is going to happen, but then by knowing that, you might do something different and then that won't happen. I don't know. There's two different theories on time travel, I think, but I subscribe to the Back to the Future one where you can mess it up, not the Terminator one, I guess.

Doug Batchelor: I think the last one there was talking about time travel, and we're not quite talking about time travel, but can a person know the future? The Bible is very clear on this subject: yes, you can. Back to our study for tonight, it is springing from an event that happened in the kingdom of Babylon during its zenith of power and glory, which was during the time of Nebuchadnezzar II. Almost nobody knows about Nebuchadnezzar I; he didn't have a great impact. Nebuchadnezzar II was a brilliant king. He reigned for about 43 years from 605 to about 562 BC, and he conquered Egypt and Lydia as well as Israel.

You might be interested to know that he was the hero of Saddam Hussein, and all around Iraq, Saddam tried to portray himself as either the reincarnated or the modern example of Nebuchadnezzar. He had coins printed and paintings issued that showed him with Nebuchadnezzar. He wanted to unite the Arab world, which is one reason that he attacked Iran, but obviously, that did not succeed. The Babylonian kingdom during the time of Nebuchadnezzar stretched all the way from the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea to the Mediterranean and to the north, and it was fabulously wealthy, as you're going to see.

So, we're going to get into our study. Nebuchadnezzar wanted his kingdom to last forever when he built it. You can read in Daniel 4:30, before a judgment fell upon him, he said, "Is not this great Babylon that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?" He wanted his kingdom to last forever. After he had everything established, he went to sleep one night, and he had a dream that was unlike a normal dream. Some dreams are extremely vivid. I do not claim to have ever had a prophetic dream.

It's amazing at Amazing Facts, we get a lot of mail, and we answer all of our letters, but every now and then, I'll get a letter that's three or four pages long, and someone said, "Pastor Doug, I had this dream," and they go on and explain the dream. Then they ask me, "Can you help me understand what this means?" And I go, "You know, I'm not Joseph. That's not my gift." We try to read the dreams, but sometimes they're a little bizarre. But sometimes God gives a supernatural dream where the person receiving the dream knows this was three-dimensional, this was real. There's an impression on their heart that God is trying to tell them something.

This is why the Pharaoh, back when he had his dream about the coming famine, he said, "God is telling me something. The wise men, bring them in. I've got to know what this dream means." Finally, Joseph gave the interpretation, and the Pharaoh knew it was true and it proved to be right. Nebuchadnezzar, another world empire. It's interesting, God is giving these dreams to pagans to then be interpreted by His people. This great monarch has this dream. He calls in his wise men. He wants them to tell him what the dream means. They said, "Well, we don't know. Tell us the dream and we'll tell you what it means."

Have you ever had a dream and it starts to get fuzzy within a few minutes? He said, "The thing is gone from me. You guys are on the Babylonian payroll, and I'm wondering if some of you are just pretending to be wise men." They claimed to have some supernatural connection with the gods. He said, "If you're really wise men, if you've really got this supernatural power, I'll know you can give me the interpretation if you can tell me the dream." They said, "Your Majesty, there's really no king that ever asks such a thing of a wise man. You tell us the dream, and we will manufacture an interpretation." He said, "No, no, no. You're just stalling right now, hoping I'll get busy and forget about it." He got mad. He said, "I want you to tell me the dream, and then I'll know you can tell me the interpretation."

That's where our questions begin. We're going to use this question-and-answer format to make sure we cover the high points in this study. Question number one: Why did God give the Babylonian king this dream? Answer: You can call out the answers that are in light blue on your screen. It says, "There is a God in heaven who reveals secrets and has made known to the King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days." He says God is showing you what is coming in the future. This dream is outlining the future, and in case you want to know, it's from the time of Nebuchadnezzar right through God's kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon thought, "I've got the biggest world empire." God said, "No, you don't. My Son is going to be the ultimate King of this world." This dream covers that.

Number two: When the king's counselors failed to reveal and interpret the dream, what was Nebuchadnezzar's command? The king, irritated, he said, "Either you're going to tell me my dream or you're going to die." The king gave a command to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. Now you've got to know a little backstory as we progress. Before King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, he did it in phases. First, he went and they surrendered, and he took the best and the brightest of their people, their craftsmen, and this was his practice. He'd bring them then to his capital so he would have the most beautifully built capital with the wisest people.

Among the captives, about 10,000 from Judea that Nebuchadnezzar carried off to Mesopotamia, to Babylon, there were four very bright, talented young men that were connected with the royal seed. They were related to King Hezekiah. Isaiah the prophet told King Hezekiah, "Because you have been showing off to the ambassadors of Babylon, this is what God decrees: Babylon's going to come and carry away your treasures, and they're going to take of your descendants and make them eunuchs in the palace of the king." Daniel and his friends in Babylon was prophesied by Isaiah in chapter 39.

So, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah—those are their Hebrew names—they were carried off to Babylon during that first captivity. They were put in the Babylonian school to be educated in the language and all the sciences of Babylon. Babylon did have some sophisticated learning. They not only had astrology; they had astronomy that would study the calendar and the times, and there was some legitimate science, and they were educated in all the wisdom of Babylon, just like Moses was educated in all the wisdom of Egypt before he fled. God allowed that. When Nebuchadnezzar tested those young men, he found that they were ten times wiser than even his own wise men.

God had specially gifted the Jewish people with this wisdom as long as they were true to God. It says they possessed knowledge and quick to understand, who had ability to serve in the king's palace. Now, from among those who were taken to Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, that were later given the names Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were given Babylonian names, which was customary when people transferred sometimes from one country to the next. I just came back from meeting with Chinese leaders, and they know that when they're talking to their English friends, when the Chinese people convert to Christianity, they pick a Christian or an American name. I'd say, "What's your name?" and they'd say, "My name is [name in Chinese]." I go, "Okay." And they say, "But you can call me Fred." They all pick another name. It just makes it a little easier when you do that.

Question number three: When Daniel learned about the death decree, what did he ask the king and what did he tell his friends? So, the king has issued a death decree. It takes time to write the decree to issue it. They set a date for execution. He said, "If you don't tell me my dream and what the interpretation is, you're going to get cut in pieces and your homes are going to be made a city dump. I'm going to ruin your posterity." That's a lot of pressure. But how do I guess what you dreamed last night? My naps are very light. I took a nap today. It was great, and I dreamed, and I remember my dream. It was great. Don't you think it was great too? You have no idea what I dreamed, do you?

I dreamed my wife was rubbing my feet, and it was wonderful. I was getting a foot massage. I woke up and she was nowhere around, but it was still great. Now, who would have guessed that? You can't guess another person's dream. So Daniel is very wise. Daniel is listed as one of the wisest people in the Bible, just under Solomon. In fact, Ezekiel said, "Though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in the land, they will deliver neither son nor daughter by their righteousness, but they will deliver their own soul." Ezekiel, who's a contemporary of Daniel, is listing Daniel as among the most righteous and wise people.

Daniel says to the guard when he hears about the decree, "Why is this decree so hasty from the king?" He said, "Let the king give us a little time, and we will tell the king what his dream means." He knew that God could reveal the Pharaoh's dream to Joseph. He said, "Lord, You've brought us here for such a time as this. You need to reveal to one of us the king's dream and its interpretation that Your people can be a light in this country." And they prayed earnestly. Daniel went in and he asked the king to give him time that he might tell the king the interpretation.

And they went before the king. The king said, "Well, I could kill all the wise men, or I can give them some time and I might get the answer." So, the king granted them time. We don't know; it may have been 24 hours or a couple of days, but Daniel and his friends had a very intense prayer meeting. Then Daniel went to his house and he made the decision known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, that they might seek from the God of heaven concerning this secret. Is there a scripture somewhere that says where two or three are gathered in My name, I am there, and if any two of you agree upon anything on earth, it shall be granted? So here you've got four believers that are kneeling together as though their lives depend on it, and it does, and they're praying for something that only God could do. Only God could give them the king's dream.

And that night, Daniel went to sleep peacefully and he had a very vivid dream. Number four: What happened in response to the prayer of Daniel and his friends, and to whom did they give credit? When he woke up in the morning and he had that vivid dream still in his mind, crystal clear, he did not forget. The Bible says in Daniel 2:19, "Then the secret was revealed." By the way, that's what the book of Revelation means. The secret was revealed to Daniel in a night vision. So Daniel blessed the God of heaven. They knew this was the king's dream because he not only got the dream, God told him what it meant. And it says in Daniel 2:28, Daniel said to the king, "There is a God in heaven who reveals." In Revelation and in Daniel, God is revealing things that are coming. And in Daniel, most of what He reveals to the king is in the past; some of it is still in the future. So, you and I are going to look at a prophecy in the Bible that tells us exactly where we are in world history, and I hope it will excite you and motivate you.

So, I'm going to go to my Bible now, and I'm going to start with Daniel chapter two, I'll probably begin at verse 28, and I'm going to read to you what Daniel saw in his dream that he later reveals to the king. Daniel 2:28: "But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream, and the visions of your head upon your bed, were these: As for you, O king, thoughts came to you while you were on your bed about what would come to pass after this; and He who reveals secrets has made known to you what will be."

Verse 31: "You, O king, were watching; and behold, a great image! This great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you; and its form was awesome. 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. 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 and the clay and the bronze and 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."

Guest (Male): My question is, I feel the call to ministry and I just had a question: how do you know if you are called to ministry? And also, I want to maybe ask your experience of feeling the call to ministry and then acting on it.

Doug Batchelor: That is a great question. And if you have the call of ministry, you want to embrace it. Jonah had a call to go preach, and he ran the other way, and he had to go through a whale before he came to his senses. You want to avoid that if you can. For one thing, you're going to feel a desire, a drive to tell people. It's sort of like the fourth man in the book of Job. He says that I feel like a bottle ready to burst if I don't speak. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:16, "Woe unto me if I preach not the gospel."

I remember a great radio evangelist named HMS Richards Sr., and he said, "If you think you're called to preach, but you can do something else, do it." In other words, if you think, "I wonder if I should be a fisherman or a preacher," well, fish for fish. If you're really not sure. So you want to feel that call where you've got that burning desire to full-time. Now, I never realized I would be in full-time ministry. I just thought I'm just going to give Bible studies and share with people, and when the doors open, and God just kept opening doors, so I ended up in full-time ministry. But it's not bad to have practical working experience. Paul also was a tentmaker. So, not every person involved in ministry is paid by a church. Everybody should be involved in ministry. But if you really believe you're being called into full-time ministry, you'll have the testimony of other people that will say, "We recognize this call in your life." You'll have certain gifts of the Spirit that are gifts of teaching, preaching, evangelism.

The other thing I would add is be patient because God called Moses into ministry, but there were a few years preparation. And He called Paul, and even Paul said, "I spent three years in Arabia," and I think he was probably doing some real study there because he knew his Bible inside out when he got done. Jesus spent three years training the apostles before He sent them out full-time. So, it may involve some time in study and training, but if you feel the call, move towards that and God will open the doors.

Guest (Male): We do have a book; it's called "Determining the Will of God." And I think you go through some of the principles in there, Pastor Doug, about knowing God's will for your life, not only for ministry but any career or maybe a relationship. You want to read that book. It's free. We'll be able to send it to anyone who calls and asks. The number to call is 800-835-6747 and then ask for the book by name, "Determining the Will of God," and we'll be happy to send it to you.