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Christianity Explained Information Find Christian Unity in Biblical Explanations of the Doctrines That Count! |
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You
have a choice to make: You can either believe the opinions of
theologians, atheists, or agnostics, or you can determine for yourself
what the Bible says by studying it. |
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Topics What Is Christianity Explained Information?What Is Religion and Where Did It Originate? What Is the Bible, and How Relative Is It to My Life? What Are Messianic Prophecies? Who Was Jesus of Nazareth, Really? Why Are There So Many World Religions? Why Are There So Many Christian Denominations? What Is the Law and How Does It Apply to Me? What's All This About the End of the World and End-time Prophecies? Isn't the Book of Daniel a Closed Book? Revelation: How can anyone understand all that symbolism? Who or What Was Jesus' Mother, Mary? Didn't Darwin Disprove Creation? What's the Truth About Faith and Works? Christian E-mails: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Complete Directory of Articles/Studies
Title Abbreviations for Books of the Bible Genesis
- Ge |
Daniel
WAS Sealed;
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| "This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. | |
| "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. | |
| "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. | |
| "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. | |
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"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. |
| "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; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. | |
| "Inasmuch 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." |
Daniel was pretty specific about that symbolism, but, of course history has to identify the "kingdoms".
Sometimes definitions can be carried to other similarly symbolized prophecies.
| "Thus he said: 'The fourth beast shall be A fourth kingdom on earth, Which shall be different from all other kingdoms, And shall devour the whole earth, Trample it and break it in pieces. |
In Daniel 7, instead of metals being kingdoms, beasts were kingdoms. Because of the close parallels in these passages, it seems obvious that the beasts in Daniel 7 were the same as the metals in Daniel 2, but there is a little more detail demonstrated by the descriptions of the beasts.
By comparing prophecies, one comes to understand that many concern the same events, but they give more and more detail as they go along.
That makes sense to me, because early in a prophetic time, one has no need for details. One must be made aware of a warning first. As the time of the more significant events nears, however, more details are needed to make sure those whom they will affect the most have a better chance of understanding what's happening.
I'll be going over Daniels' prophecies as soon as I can, but for now, if you're interested, read the book of Daniel yourself and see if you can see a parallel in some of the prophecies. My studies in the book of Daniel will overlap studies in that other confusing symbolic book, The Revelation of Jesus Christ as recorded by the Apostle John. As I moved through past studies of Daniel and Revelation, I found the similarities and explanations they lend to each other uncanny.
The book of Daniel was closed because no one would be able to understand the symbols until history had recorded the events that fulfilled some of the prophecies.
| "But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase." |
This is one of the verses that tells us we have arrived at the "time of the end": in what other era has there been so much information available to all mankind or have the earth's inhabitants been running to and fro? At first glance, "running to and fro" is fulfilled just by the constant movement of people on the earth, but linguistically it probably refers to the searching of literary works to increase knowledge. Are we not living in "the information age"? Are not greater numbers of people searching books and the Internet for knowledge.
John, on the other hand, was instructed NOT to seal his book.
| And he said to me, "Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. |
Now that knowledge has increased, the book of Daniel is no longer closed. Still confusing, yes. Still closed, no. Denied by those who do not want to acknowledge that the Messiah has come, yes. Undecipherable by those who want to know what prophecy says, no.
Related Links
Written in the HeartThe Truth About Mary Magdalene
Scriptures:
Within Text:
Daniel 2:36-45
Daniel 7:23
More Study:
name chap:verse-s