Daniel in the Lion’s Den – Daniel 6:1-28

Summary:

“Darius” (6:1) conquered Babylon (5:31) and set up 120 princes. That doesn’t contradict Esther 1:1-3, for that took place 17 years later after they conquered 7 more provinces.

How is “Daniel” alive (6:2)? He refused to be a ruler in Babylon (5:17), knowing the city was about to be conquered and her rulers slain. But the king insisted (5:29). Well, they probably didn’t kill him because they heard he predicted Babylon’s fall and figured his God must God. That’s also why he was the “first” president set over the 120 princes (6:2) so the king would receive none of the financial “damage” kings get when princes steal tax money (cf. Ezra 4:13).

The princes were jealous that he was about to be made ruler over the whole realm, so tried to find a fault in Daniel “concerning the kingdom” (6:4), i.e., in his management of it. But they couldn’t find any fault of any kind, making him a type of Christ. Israel’s rulers tried to find fault with Him because they knew He too was about to be head over the
whole realm of Israel (6:4 cf. Lu. 20:19, 20), but failed (23:13, 14).

Daniel’s also a type of Tribulation saints. They will be rulers in the kingdom (Mt. 5:5), so Antichrist’s followers will try to find fault with them (Ps. 37:11, 12). Psalm 10:49 calls them lions in a den (Ps. 10:4, 9). That’s why Peter tells Tribulation believers to obey the king so they can find fault in them concerning the kingdom (II Pe. 2:12-15). The Spirit will help them be as sinless as Daniel (I Jo. 3:9).

So the princes knew they had to find a way Daniel’s religion broke the law (6:5). That’s what the Lord’s enemies charged Him with too (Lu. 23:1, 2). But Daniel’s religion didn’t break any laws, so they proposed a new law (6:6, 7). Daniel would have to break that law because his law said he had to pray thrice daily (Ps. 55:17). By the way, prohibiting prayer to any God or man (6:7) makes this a type of the Tribulation, when a man will claim to be God.

The king signed the law, making it unchangeable even by the king himself (6:8, 9). This established a state religion, one men had to accept or die, like Rome had for centuries and Antichrist will have. He’s called a lion (I Pe. 5:8) and his “many” antichrist’s (I Jo. 2:18) made up a den of lions. On the cross, the Lord prayed to be saved from the “lion” of the devil (Ps. 22:1, 20), and so will Tribulation Jews.

Daniel refused to stop praying to God because his prayers took the place of the offerings that God’s law said he had to bring (Ps. 141:1, 2), and because while in captivity he was supposed to pray “toward Jerusalem” (I Ki. 8:44-50 cf. Dan. 6:10). His 3 friends weren’t caught praying because Daniel is in his 80s and they were probably dead by then.

Darius was mad at himself because he knew the princes envied Daniel and tricked him into passing the law. He knew Daniel was innocent so tried to save him (6:12-14). That’s a type of how Israel’s rulers envied the Lord and delivered Him to Pilate (Mark 15:10), who knew the Lord was innocent so tried to save Him (Mt. 27:11-26). Since Darius could have no power against Daniel except it were given him of God, he’s a type of God, who anthropomorphically tried to figure a way to save His Son from the lion at the cross. But He too had a law that couldn’t be altered, and it said sin had to be punished. He’d like to save His sons in Israel in the Tribulation too, but they broke His law and will have to be punished.

Darius sent Daniel into the lion’s den with an assurance he’d be delivered (6:15, 16), a type of how God sent Christ to the cross with the same assurance (Pr. 16:10). Being sealed in the lion’s den with a stone was a type of Matthew 27:57-60.

Darius found out Daniel was okay “early in the morning” (Dan. 6:19), picturing how they found out the Lord was okay “early in the morning” (Lu. 24:1, 2). God raised Daniel out of the den because he served God continually (Dan. 6:20), and that’s why God raised  Christ out of the tomb too.

Daniel 6:23, 24 proves the lions weren’t drugged or overfed, and typifies what will happen to the unsaved Jews who accused the Lord, and the ones who will accuse Tribulation Jews. Darius knew what Daniel taught in Daniel 2, that God’s kingdom would never end (Dan. 6:25, 26), so if he wasn’t saved then, he was well on his way!

A video of this sermon is available on YouTube: Daniel in the Lion’s Den – Daniel 6:1-28

A Feast Unfit For a King – Daniel 5:1-31

Summary:

Nebuchadnezzar was actually Belshazzar’s grandfather, not his “father” (v. 2), but Daniel was writing in Chaldean, and there was no Chaldean word for grandfather, nor any Hebrew word for it (cf. II Sam. 9:6, 7) or Greek word (cf. Mt. 1:1).

Belshazzar asked to drink out of the vessels from Israel’s temple (v. 2, 3) to show his contempt for Israel’s God.  So God allowed him to be conquered by the Medes and Persians (Jer. 51:37-39; 51:57, 58) later that night (Dn. 5:30, 31).

Daniel 5:5 mentions the hand’s “fingers” because back then “the finger of God” was a figure of speech that meant God must have His finger in something (Ex. 8:18).  But in the Bible, “the finger of God” was a symbol of “the Spirit of God” (Mt. 11:28 cf. Lu. 11:20).  God’s Spirit wrote the law (Deut. 9:10) and the rest of the Word of God (II Pe. 1:20, 21).

The Spirit wrote on the wall by “the candlestick” (Dan. 5:5) the king probably also got from the temple (Jer. 52:12-19). God predicted the king’s fear 100 years earlier (Isa. 21:2-4).

Belshazzar could only offer his wise men “third” place in the kingdom because his father Nabonidus was actually the king; he was just out of town.  That made Belshazzar himself second in the kingdom, so he couldn’t offer that position as a reward as Pharaoh did for Joseph (Gen. 41:42).

Belshazzar’s wise men couldn’t interpret the writing (cf. Isa. 44:24, 25) for it was God’s Word, and unsaved men can’t understand the Word (I Cor. 2:14).  Only a man with the Spirit can, something we see symbolized by the way God laid out the temple.  The bread on the table of showbread had two rows of six loaves (Lev. 24:5, 6) to represent the Bible’s 66 books, for man doesn’t live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from God’s mouth.  God parked that bread under the candlestick that represents the Spirit to symbolize that only He can shed “light” on God’s Word.

The queen heard the king’s fear and came in (5:9, 10).  She must have been his mother, for “all” his wives were already at the party (5:2).  She told him to call Daniel in to interpret the writing (5:11-17).  Daniel refused the king’s offer to be Babylon’s 3rd ruler, even though he accepted a reward from his grandfather (Dan. 2:48), because he knew Babylon would fall that night and most of her rulers would likely be killed.  Besides, he had all the “chains” (5:16) he needed (Pr. 1:7-9).

After Daniel reminded the king that pride had been his grandfather’s downfall (5:18-25), he began to interpret his dream. “Mene” (v. 26) means numbered and, being a prophet, Daniel amplified it to mean God had numbered the years of his kingdom to be 70 years (Jer. 25:11, 12), and his number was up!  “Tekel” (Dan. 5:27) means weighed, which Daniel amplified to mean he’d been weighed and found wanting.  “Peres” (v. 28) was a form of “upharsin” and meant his kingdom would be “divided” to the combined kingdom of Media-Persia.  God predicted this 100 years ealier and said they couldn’t be bribed to not conquer them (Isa. 13:1, 17).

Daniel eventually had to accept a position as 3rd ruler because the king “commanded” it (Dan. 5:29), and God’s people are supposed to do what the king commands.  Besides, he just got done acting like the 3rd person in God’s kingdom, the Spirit, when he interpreted the Word of God.  Joseph was a type of Christ, the 2nd person in the Trinity, so God allowed him to be made the 2nd ruler in Egypt.

God sketched out how Babylon would fall (Isa. 21:4-9), but didn’t give the full story that history gives us.  History says the Medes and Persians dammed up the Euphrates River that ran through Babylon, allowing them to sneak in under the massive walls.  Belshazzar and all his rulers were too drunk to fight them off, or even believe the initial reports that the wall had been breached.

Why wouldn’t God include that great story in the Bible?  Because Babylon will rise and fall again, and this fall is a type of that fall, and God didn’t want you to think future Babylon will fall the same way, for it will burn (Rev. 18).  Future Babylonians will be saying “peace and safety,” just as they did in ancient Babylon, but destruction will fall on them just as suddenly (I Thes. 5:3) “in one hour” (Rev. 18:10).

A video of this sermon is available on YouTube: A Feast Unfit for a King – Daniel 5:1-31

No Beauty That We Should Desire Him

“Les Feldick taught that Isaiah 53:2 doesn’t mean the Lord Jesus was ugly, but that there was nothing in Him that would attract the Jews to Him as their King and Messiah. What do you say?”

I never thought about it that way, but Les is right! Isaiah wrote:

“…when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.”

In the context, we find a description of the Lord just a few verses earlier that has to be taken into consideration to determine what the prophet meant:

“…His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men” (Isa. 52:14).

This is a picture of the Lord after the scourging they gave Him just before nailing Him to the cross. This somber image of what He endured to pay for our sins is what believers have in mind when the world observes “Good Friday”.

But that means Isaiah was saying there was nothing in Him that the “people” of Israel (53:8) would desire in a king. They rejected Him because they were looking for more of a “champion on a white horse who will save us from our enemies” kind of Messiah. The Lord may or may not have been a handsome man, but Isaiah wasn’t talking about the features that make up physical attraction.

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.


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An Attitude Adjustment – Daniel 4:1-37

Summary:

In an official proclamation to his people, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon told how the signs and wonders he saw in Daniel 2,3 made him realize that Daniel’s God was God, and that he was only king of the world because God made him king of the world  (1:1-3).  But a lot of years had passed by Chapter 4, and he’s gotten pretty full of himself (v. 30), so God gave him another bad dream (4:4-7).  He consulted the wise men who couldn’t interpret his last dream because he was still calling Bel “my god” (v. 8), so still believed in them.

Trees (v. 10) in the Bible often represent men (Mt. 7:15-17), and this one represented a man that got big and powerful (Dn. 4:11, 12).  The mention of birds and beasts may have had the king wondering if the tree represented him, because of what Daniel had told him back in Daniel 2:37,38.

The “watcher” (v. 13) was a holy angel.  God sees all, but chooses to use angels to see (cf. Gen. 18:20, 21 cf. 19:1; II Chron. 16:9).  That means if the king thinks the tree represents him, he knows he’s being told he’s about to lose control over the world (Dn. 4:14).  But he also knows he won’t die, for if you leave a tree’s stump (v. 15) it will grow back.  He learns this man’s heart will be turned into the heart of a beast (v. 16) for “seven times,” or seven years (cf. Rev. 12:14).

The watcher’s decree (v. 17) came from God (cf. v. 24), the same God who made a “base” man named Pharaoh king of the world (Ex. 9:16), and now Nebuchadnezzar.  “Base” means lowly.  Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar probably thought a lot of themselves, but God didn’t.

Daniel told the king that his dream was good news for his enemies (v. 18, 19) because it meant he was about to go mad for seven years (v. 20-25).  That explains Daniel’s astonishment (v. 19), for Nebuchadnezzar probably quit worshipping idols after Chapter 3, so Daniel probably couldn’t figure out why God would do this to him.  But the watchers saw the pride in his private life that Daniel couldn’t see.  All that being said, the preservation of the tree’s stump meant the king would live to get his kingdom back (v. 26).

Daniel went on to tell the king that if he’d mend his ways he could avoid all this (v. 27), and for awhile it seems he did, But then his pride got the best of him (v. 28-33).  Becoming like a “beast” for seven years makes him a type of the Anti-christ in the Tribulation, aka “the beast.”  An “ox” is associated with Satan.  God created him a cherub (Ezek. 28:14), and cherubs were oxen (Ezek. 1:4-10 cf. 10:14).  That’s why Satan was cursed “above all cattle” (Gen. 3:14).

We see more proof that the king was a type of the Antichrist when Daniel told him that he’d have bird claws, for birds in the Bible are not good things (Mt. 13:4, 19).  They are associated with leaven (Lu. 1:18-21), a type of sin.  Antichrist’s kingdom will be full of devils called birds (Rev. 18:2).  This symbolic type is telling us that after the Rapture, the world is going to be under the dominion of a bird-like beast for seven years, and ruled by a madman.

But how can Nebuchadnezzar be a type of the beast if he ends up blessing God (Dn. 4:34, 35)?  Well, there will be “many” antichrists (I Jo. 2:18) called “natural brute beasts” (II Pe. 2:12; Jude 1:10).  If they don’t take the beast’s mark they can be saved and end up blessing God like Nebuchadnezzar, who typifies those antichrists in his conversion.

We can’t be sure, but I think Nebuchadnezzar gets saved here (Dn. 4:36, 37) by doing what Daniel told him to do: being merciful to the poor (4:27).  The poor in Babylon would certainly involve the Jews.  And blessing Jews is what Gentiles had to do to be blessed by God with salvation (Gen. 12:1-3).  That’s also what Gentiles and Jews will have to do in the Tribulation to get saved, as the Lord told people who were heading into the Tribulation—the Tribulation that would have come if God hadn’t interrupted Daniel’s prophecies with the mystery (Lu. 18:18, 22).  If Nebuchadnezzar did get saved, someday you’ll get to ask him how much weight he lost on The Oxen Diet, and you ladies can ask him how he kept those long nails from breaking for seven years.

Pride can be your undoing as well, for “pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).  Don’t let it undo you!

Video of this sermon is available on YouTube: An Attitude Adjustment – Daniel 4:1-37

Does Satan Need God’s Permission?

“In the middle of this pandemic, someone asked me if Satan has to get God’s permission for each individual act of wickedness like he did with Job?”

In Job’s day, everyone knew that God was rewarding good behavior with things like wealth and good health (Job 1:1-3). That’s why Job’s three friends all told him, in so many words, that he must have sinned to have incurred the loss of his health and wealth. This is also how God dealt with the people of Israel under the law (Lev. 26; Deut. 28). In such cases, God would use Satan and his host to effect the punishment (1 Kings 22:22; 1 Chron. 21:1), as well as the natural wickedness of men (Isa. 10:5-7).

But we are not under that kind of conditional blessing because we are not under the law, we are under grace (Rom. 6:14,15). Today God blesses us up front with “all spiritual blessings” in Christ (Eph. 1:3), and then beseeches us to walk worthy of them (Eph. 4:1; Col. 1:10). That means that pandemics and natural disasters are not Satan’s doing, they are just the result of living in a creation that is cursed by sin (Rom. 8:22, 23). Today Satan is “an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14), and his devils are “ministers of righteousness” (v. 15). They are busy teaching “doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. 4:1), not wreaking havoc in the material world.

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.


Two Minutes with the Bible lets you start your day with short but powerful Bible study articles from the Berean Bible Society. Sign up now to receive Two Minutes With the Bible every day in your email inbox. We will never share your personal information and you can unsubscribe at any time.



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Man To Man

“But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth” (Luke 1:13-14).

God was gracious to Zacharias and Elisabeth in miraculously giving them a child when Elisabeth was barren and they were both up in years. The angel told Zacharias that his child, John (the Baptist), would bring joy and gladness, and not only to him, but “many shall rejoice at his birth.” The reason is given in verses 16-17,

“And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children….”

Many in Israel were saved and “turn[ed] to the Lord their God” because of John’s powerful ministry. And the many who repented and received the salvation of the Lord under the terms of the gospel of the kingdom praised the day that John was born.

Speaking man to man, do others rejoice at the day we were born? This may well be so as a result of our faithful service and testimony for Christ, putting others before ourselves, or because they heard the gospel of grace through us and were saved, or because they learned the truth of the revelation of the mystery.

With fearless passion, “in the spirit and power of [Elijah],” John turned “the hearts of the fathers to the children.” John would cause the belief in the hearts of the fathers of Israel, like Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Elijah, etc., to awaken in the hearts of their children, the children of Israel alive at the time of John. We, too, by our ardent service for Christ, may well awaken the passionate hearts of the believing from previous generations in this generation—to awaken the evangelistic hearts of men like Hudson Taylor, Billy Sunday, and D. L. Moody in the Church today—and to awaken those whose hearts burned for the Word of God rightly divided like J. C. O’Hair, C. R. Stam, Charles Baker in the Body of Christ today.

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.


Two Minutes with the Bible lets you start your day with short but powerful Bible study articles from the Berean Bible Society. Sign up now to receive Two Minutes With the Bible every day in your email inbox. We will never share your personal information and you can unsubscribe at any time.



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The King’s Tall Order – Daniel 3:1-30

Summary:

The king’s image was probably not solid gold (cf. Isa. 40:19; Hab. 2:18, 19), but it was gold from top to bottom.  That was his way of telling God that no “inferior” kingdoms were about to come along and conquer his kingdom as God had predicted (cf. Dan. 2:36-38).  That makes him a type of the Antichrist.  God predicts his rise and fall too, and he won’t like it either, and will also erect an image (Rev. 13:11-14).

The dimensions of the king’s image are too narrow to be a man.  It was probably a phallic symbol.  He commanded people to worship it or die in a fiery furnace (3:2-6).  That was how the Babylonians executed people (Jer. 29:22).  He was establishing a state religion, like they did at the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:4), with a “city” to head their religion.  Rome was a similar state religion for centuries that used to kill people who didn’t accept her religion.  The Tower of Babel was located on a plain in Shinar (11:2), and so was Nebuchadnezzar’s image (Dan. 1:2; 3:1), possibly the same plain!  And possibly the same one where Antichrist will erect his image in “Babylon” (Rev. 17:5) and command men to worship it or die (13:12-15), establishing his state religion.  Six times we are told the king “set up” this image, this image that was 60 cubits by 6 cubits, and there are six musical instruments mentioned in this passage, making all of this a type of the number of the beast (Rev. 13:18).

The “Chaldeans” (Dan. 3:8) who ratted out the three amigos were the ones Daniel asked the king to spare (Dan. 2:10-12), but he and his friends made them look bad when they interpreted a dream the Chaldeans couldn’t.  They were also jealous that the king gave them positions in the government of Babylon (Dan. 2:49).  Daniel was probably away on state business during all this (cf. Dan. 8:1, 2), making him a type of Christ, who will be away on God’s business when His friends in Israel (John 15:15, 16) are ordered to worship Antichrist’s image.  When his friends were “brought before the king” (Dan. 3:13), that’s a type of Luke 21:12.

Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego (Dan. 3:14) were not their real names. The king replaced their Hebrew names with heathen names (1:6, 7).  But you’ll notice that Daniel didn’t insist on using their Hebrew names, so don’t let anyone insist that you call the Lord Jesus by His Hebrew name of Yashua!

But what happened to the king who recognized Daniel’s God (cf. 2:47)?  He’s made two more trips to plunder Jerusalem and her temple, and in those days if you conquered a nation, it was thought your god was more powerful than his.

When the Hebrews refused to bow to the king’s image (3:17, 18), they became a type of Tribulation Jews (Rev. 15:2).  When verse 17 says “He will deliver us,” they didn’t know if God would deliver them out of the king’s hand by preserving them in the fire or just taking them to paradise.  You and I have the same promise of deliverance from all our troubles as well.  Paul knew God would deliver him, because he trusted the God who raises the dead! (II Cor. 1:9, 10).

The fiery furnace was a type of the Tribulation (Mal. 4:1), and heating it “seven times hotter” than normal was a type of the seven years of the Tribulation (cf. Lev. 26:27-33).  Our heroes were thrown into the furnace “bound,” but were instantly walking around “loose”—meaning all that burned up were the ropes that bound them!  That makes them the answer to the question in Isaiah 33:14, 15.

How’d the king know God had a son (Dan. 3:25)?  Ever since Daniel interpreted his dream, he had his wise men studying Daniel’s Scriptures (cf. Prov. 30:4).  And since the fourth guy in the furnace was probably shining brighter than the fire in the furnace (cf. Acts 26:13), the king figured out who he was.

It’s precious to see that Nebuchadnezzar had to command them to come out (3:27)!  They’d rather be in the fire with the Lord than out of the fire with the king!  Can you say the same thing about the fiery trials you’re going through?  They were probably the ones in Hebrews 11:34, as they enjoyed the Lord’s promise to be with them (Isa. 43:2, 3).  When the king promoted them to new positions in the government, that’s a picture of how Tribulation saints who endure the fire of the Tribulation faithfully will be rewarded with positions in the Lord’s government (cf. Rev. 3:21).

Video of this sermon is available on YouTube: The King’s Tall Order – Daniel 3:1-30

The Reward Reckoned of Grace

One morning as a boss finished parking his brand new Ferrari in the company parking lot, one of his employees pulled up and began staring at his new wheels in obvious envy. Seeing this, the boss said, “You know, if you work overtime every week, skip coffee breaks, and even work weekends and holidays, by this time next year—I just might have another one of these babies!”

As you may know by painful experience, employers don’t always reward good work the way they should. But that’s not the case with the Lord Jesus Christ! He plans to reward us for any work we do that edifies “the church, which is His Body” (Eph. 1:22,23) when we stand before Him at “the Judgment Seat of Christ” (Rom. 14:10).

Our Apostle Paul introduced his description of the Judgment Seat by remarking that he was the “masterbuilder” who had “laid the foundation” of the church (1 Cor. 3:10). He described how he and Apollos had been building on his foundation as “labourers together with God” (1 Cor. 3:9). But he made it clear that edifying the church wasn’t the exclusive privilege of “ministers” like him and Apollos (1 Cor. 3:5) when he added,

If any man build upon this foundation… Every man’s work… shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire” (1 Cor. 3:12-15).

As you can see, “any” believer can participate in this epic building project, and the Lord plans to reward those whose work can abide the fiery test He plans to give our work in that day.

Reasonable Doubts

But some grace believers have questions about the wording Paul uses here, questions that have even caused some to question the doctrine of the Judgment Seat itself. For example, some grace teachers hold that the very concept of rewards is inconsistent with grace. But in speaking of justification by faith without works (Rom. 4:1-3), our apostle wrote,

“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt” (Rom. 4:4).

That implies that there must be a reward that is reckoned of grace, or it wouldn’t make any sense to say that. And the reward that is reckoned of grace is the reward Paul promises we’ll receive if our work can abide the trial by fire the Lord plans to give it.

Of course, when it comes to how we judge our own labor for the Lord, most of us feel like the servants He talked about in Luke 17:10 who said,

“We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.”

In and of ourselves, most of us wouldn’t expect to be rewarded for doing that which is our duty. We believe it is our spiritual and moral obligation to live for the One who died for us (2 Cor. 5:14, 15). Eternal life is reward enough! So when Paul tells us that God plans to reward us on top of everlasting life, we cry out, “I don’t deserve this!” And when we do, God responds, as it were, “You’re right, you don’t. That’s what makes it grace.”

The word “fire” (1 Cor. 3:15) has given other grace teachers pause, for they feel that fire is also antithetical to grace since Paul rarely uses that word in connection with the Body of Christ. But if we insist that a rare use of a word somehow negates its application to us, then to be consistent we would have to conclude that we have not “received the atonement” that Paul only once says we have received (Rom. 5:11). And if we don’t allow Paul to use the word fire to make a point, then we’d also have to conclude that we shouldn’t feed a hungry enemy, for Paul says that “in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head” (Rom. 12:20).

The fire in 1 Corinthians 3:15 is the fire of God’s Word (Jer. 23:29). What else would the Lord use to evaluate our work, since His Word tells us how to work for Him? But the fire of His Word won’t try us. We ourselves won’t be on trial at the Judgment Seat of Christ, only our labor for the Lord. And the fire cannot burn our work in the sense of making it as if it never happened. It will only “manifest” if our work is the “sort” that can be rewarded (1 Cor. 3:13). Once work is done, it can only be “burned” in the sense that it will cause the doer of the work to “suffer loss” of reward because it was work that didn’t contribute to the edifying of the church.

No Sin Tax

Still others are not comfortable with the notion of our work being judged, for they feel it implies our sins will be judged after Christ already paid for them. But our works won’t be judged in that day, only our “work” (1 Cor. 3:13,14,15). That is, our entire body of work as believers will be on trial, not our individual works. The “loss” of reward we will experience won’t be a sin tax. If our sins were to be brought up at all, it would only be in regard to how they affected our work. In other words, our sins wouldn’t be brought up because they hurt the Lord, but only because they hurt our work for the Lord.

If you’re not sure what I mean by that, let’s consider a verse that Christians think suggests we’ll be punished for our sins at the Lord’s Judgment Seat:

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10).

You say, “That sure sounds like we’ll be punished for our sins!” But look at how the Bible uses that word “bad” in Numbers 13:1-20:

“…the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Send thou men, that they may search the land… whether it be good or bad… fat or lean, whether there be wood therein, or not.”

Now think about that. Land can’t be “bad” in the sinful sense. When God went on to tell Moses to see if the land was “fat or lean,” that’s what determined if it was good or bad—whether it was a fertile land filled with fruitful forests. That’s similar to how “the Badlands” in South Dakota aren’t called bad because sinful bad guys used to hang out there. The Lakota Indians called them bad because of the extreme temperatures in that area, the lack of water, and the rugged terrain.

We see this definition of “bad” again when Jeremiah wrote,

“One basket had very good figs… and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad” (Jer. 24:2).

Figs can’t be bad in any moral sense. Sometimes they’re just not good to eat. God even called the bad ones “naughty,” another word we associate with sin. It kind of makes you wonder if your Fig Newtons are misbehaving before you open the package and expose their antics to the light of day!

Did you ever catch a sinful fish? If not, you might be wondering what the Lord meant when He said,

“…the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: Which, when it was full, they… gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away” (Matt. 13:47,48).

Fishermen don’t throw fish away because they’ve been misbehaving in “school”! They throw them away because they’re not good to eat.

And that’s what Paul means when he talks about receiving for the bad we have done. He’s not suggesting we will receive some kind of punishment for our bad sins. He’s saying we’ll receive a loss of reward for the bad job we did in building the church.

Job Performance

If you’re not sure what the difference would be, imagine what would happen if an Olympic runner got heavily drunk the night before his event. His subsequent hangover the next day would preclude him from running his race well. But he wouldn’t suffer a loss of reward due to his drunkenness per se, only in that his drunkenness affected his performance.

When I was a tool and die maker, my boss would give me blueprints, and sometimes I’d follow them to the letter. When I did, my boss would tell me I did a good job. But there were other times when I’d machine the steel and miss the tolerance by a thousandth of an inch, and he’d say I did a bad job.

In those cases, I hadn’t done anything sinful. I just didn’t do a good job following the blueprints. And when it comes to building the church on the foundation of Christ that Paul laid, you can only do a good job if you follow the blueprints of what he wrote in his epistles. That’s the only way to build on the foundation Paul laid with gold, silver, and precious stones (1 Cor. 3:12).

If you do manage to do a good job building the church, the Lord plans to “reward” you (1 Cor. 3:14). The dictionary says that the word reward refers to something that is given in recognition of one’s service, and that’s how the Bible uses it in Numbers 18:31, where Moses told the priests,

“…it is your reward for your service in the tabernacle….”

Of course, our reward is different than the one described in that passage for Israel’s priests. God plans to reward our service with a “crown” (1 Cor. 9:25). And what kind of man wears a crown? A king, a man who reigns over others. That explains why Paul wrote,

“If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him: if we deny Him, He will deny us” (2 Tim. 2:12).

If you refuse to suffer for the Lord, He will deny you the opportunity to reign with Him. You’ll suffer the loss of that reward. He’s talking about how we have the opportunity to “judge angels” (1 Cor. 6:3) in the government of heaven for all eternity.

Do Your Level Best

But there are “stories in the heaven” (Amos 9:6), and not the kind that grandparents tell their grandchildren. That’s talking about the kind of stories we have in mind when we say the Sears Tower in Chicago is 110 stories tall. In using that word, God means for us to know that there are different levels in the government of heaven. And He wants us to reign with Christ at the highest possible level. That’s why He inspired Paul to write,

“Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain… They do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible” (1 Cor. 9:24,25).

Now here, Paul is drawing some comparisons and contrasts to something we read about in secular history called the Isthmian games. The city of Corinth was located on an isthmus, and these games were Corinth’s version of the Olympics. In games like that, only one can receive first prize. But the reason Paul makes that comparison isn’t to suggest that only one Christian will be rewarded at the Judgment Seat. It is to encourage us to run as if only one of us will be rewarded. Now that’s incentive!

But aren’t you glad you’re not striving for the “corruptible crown” they ran for in the Isthmian games? History says that first prize back then was some kind of leafy laurel that they wore on their heads like a pretend crown that was doomed to wither and fade away. That’s another example of the comparisons and contrasts that Paul is making here, for we’re running for a crown, but a crown that will last for eternity.

And there’s another comparison to the Isthmian games that I believe Paul would have us envision. The kind of judges they had at those games were the kind that Paul had in mind when he says that the Lord will “judge” our work (1 Cor. 4:4,5). When prizes were awarded for the various sporting events, it was a joyous occasion, not a frightening one, such as we read about when John describes the Great White Throne judgment where the unsaved will be banished to the lake of fire to be punished for their sins for all eternity.

A Holy Terror

I say that because it is easy to misunderstand what Paul went on to say after describing the Judgment Seat of Christ as an event where

“…every one may receive the things done in his body… good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord…” (2 Cor. 5:10,11).

But now, do you really believe that we’ll have to stand before the Lord in abject terror, fearing what He is going to do to us for not serving Him better? Your Savior is not a terrorist. He isn’t now, and He won’t be when you stand before Him at His Judgment Seat. The “terror” here is the kind the people of Israel felt in Exodus 20:18-20:

“…the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and… the mountain smoking: and… they… stood afar off…And Moses said… Fear not.

The people of Israel were afraid, but they weren’t afraid that God was going to kill them here—not after they saw God rain terror down on the Egyptians, and then part the Red  Sea so they could escape them. They were just in awe of His great power and majesty. That is, they “were afraid by reason of the fire” (Deut. 5:5), but they weren’t afraid that they’d be harmed by the fire as a punishment from God. If you study that event, you will see that they hadn’t even done anything wrong! God wasn’t even angry with them.

So when they said they wanted to send Moses to talk with God rather than speaking with Him personally “lest we die” (Ex. 20:19), their fear of death stemmed from the rightful fear that all men would have in the presence of Almighty God. It’s what Paul means when he says that even saved and secure believers like us should possess a healthy measure of the fear of the Lord (2 Cor. 7:1; Eph. 5:21; Phil. 2:12). We don’t have to fear that God will harm us—not after He rained down terror on the Lord on the cross to help us escape the judgment of our sins. But we must never forget the awesome glory of His power and majesty that we would surely remember if we were standing in His presence.

If you don’t understand this, and you don’t possess an appropriate fear of the Lord now, you will when you stand before Him in that day. And “knowing therefore the terror of the Lord” that we’ll surely have then, “we persuade men” now to be saved and come to a knowledge of Pauline truth (2 Cor. 5:11; 1 Tim. 2:4). But you needn’t be terrified of any punishment you’ll receive of the Lord for your sins when your work is judged.

Mercy’s Sake

You say, “If that’s so, how come Paul said what he said about a man named Onesiphorus?”

“The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day…” (2 Tim. 1:18).

We’re not told what this dear brother did, but whatever it was, Paul hoped he would find mercy of the Lord at His Judgment Seat. But the “mercy” he was hoping he’d find wasn’t the kind he’d need to be spared punishment for his sins. It’s the kind we read about when the Jews were in captivity and God let them out after 70 years. Speaking of that release, Ezra wrote:

“…we were bondmen; yet our God hath… extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God” (Ezra 9:9).

Ezra says God had mercy on the Jews by letting them out of captivity to return home and rebuild their temple.

Do you know the difference between mercy and grace? Generally speaking, grace is when God gives us what we don’t deserve—a home in heaven for all eternity. Mercy is when He doesn’t give us what we do deserve—an eternal home in the lake of fire.

When we apply that definition of mercy to the Jews in Ezra’s day, we have to conclude that in using that word Ezra meant to say that they deserved to stay in captivity forever for their sinful disobedience to God. But God didn’t give them what they deserved, He had mercy on them instead and released them.

And when Paul used that word mercy in reference to the Judgment Seat of Christ, he is telling us that Onesiphorus deserved to suffer a loss of reward, but Paul was hoping that God would have mercy on him instead.

This is why the apostle compares the Judgment Seat of Christ to the judgment of the Isthmian games and not the judgment of the Great White Throne. When prizes were awarded at those games, contestants who were among those that finished last experienced sadness, of course. But in describing the day of the Judgment Seat, Paul assures us, “then shall every man have praise of God” (1 Cor. 4:5). While many will suffer a loss of reward in that day, “every man” will receive some type of reward. You have God’s word on it through your apostle Paul!

The Whys and Wherefores

“Pastor, are you saying that we should be motivated to serve the Lord by the thought of how He will reward us?” Well, Paul knew you’d be curious about that! That’s why he went on to say,

“Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord… the love of Christ constraineth us; because… He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:11-15).

We know the terror of the Lord, but it’s His love that constrains us to serve Him! The love He showed in dying for us should motivate us to live for Him, and to run that we may obtain the rewards that He longs to give us.

You see, God is tired of watching the Academy Awards and seeing all the wrong people rewarded for all the wrong reasons. He longs to reward all the right people for all the right reasons! And if it pleases Him to reward us, it should please us to receive His reward. Part of the challenge of the Christian life is to learn to think about things the way God thinks about them.

Finally, when Paul says that after our work is judged we ourselves will be saved “yet so as by fire,” it’s important to remember that even if nearly everything you’ve ever done is burned up because it is made of wood, hay and stubble, there’s something that won’t burn up because it can’t. And that is: the foundation on which our work is built. Christ is the foundation of the church Paul laid (1 Cor. 3:10,11), and foundations made of Rock don’t burn! So the fire that may burn the wood, hay, and stubble of your work won’t burn you. And that’s another thing that will make that day a joyous one.

When the medals are awarded in the Olympics, the only ones who feel less than joyful are the runners-up who say to themselves, “If I’d only studied my sport a little more carefully and trained a little more rigorously, I could have been rewarded a little higher.” And the only ones who will feel less than joyous than others at the Judgment Seat of Christ will be the ones thinking the same thing about their service for the Lord.

Oscar Schindler saved Jews from the Nazis in many different ways. One of those ways was by paying off Nazi officers. The movie depicting his life ends with a poignant scene. It shows him looking at his expensive watch and saying, “I could have sold this watch and saved more people!” He then turned his gaze to his extravagant car and said, “I could have sold this car and helped even more people!”

You don’t want to be like that at the Judgment Seat of Christ. You don’t want to have to say, “I could have saved more people if only I’d have studied God’s Word a little more carefully and learned to be a better ambassador for Christ! I could have helped more believers understand Pauline truth if only I’d worked a little harder to understand it myself, and edified the Lord’s church more in line with the blueprints found in Paul’s
epistles.”

If you’d like to avoid a poignant scene like that at the Judgment Seat of Christ, why not pray about it, right now.

You’ll be eternally glad you did.


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If A Thief Be Found Breaking Up…

“My grandson and I were talking about all the thieves that steal packages from people’s porches, and that made me think of Exodus 22:2,3. Can you explain those verses?”

“If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him. If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him; for he should make full restitution….”

If you killed a man back then, your blood had to be shed for him (Gen. 9:6). But there were Biblical exceptions, such as in cases of manslaughter (Num. 35:9-11). Another exception arose if a homeowner killed a thief he found “breaking” into his home in the dark of night. That’s considered “justifiable homicide” even in our own day, for you don’t know if a midnight intruder is there to merely steal your possessions, or if he came to kill you, rape your wife, or kidnap your children.

But if a thief broke into a Hebrew’s home and dropped some form of incriminating identification while robbing him, and he hunted him down and killed him after “the sun be risen upon him” the next day, that’s different. In such a case, the homeowner’s blood “shall be shed for him,” for that was an act of vengeance, not justice, and vengeance belongs to the Lord (Rom. 12:19). In a case like that, justice was supposed to be served by forcing the man to make “restitution” of what he stole instead.

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.


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The Unidentified Nation – Daniel 2:40-49

Summary:

As we have seen, God inspired Daniel to predict that the Media-Persian empire of silver would conquer Babylon, and the Greek empire of brass would conquer them.  But He didn’t inspire Daniel to name the iron kingdom that would conquer the Greeks.  We know it was the Romans, but we also know from the rest of Daniel that the iron nation would produce the antichrist.  And God knew He would interrupt Daniel’s prophecy with the mystery, so He left Rome unnamed.  After the dispensation of the mystery is over, another iron kingdom will rise and produce the antichrist.

But both kingdoms are associated with iron.  Rome was “strong as iron” and conquered all who got in her way (2:40).  But Antichrist’s kingdom will be too.  Satan’s fallen angels will again “mingle” with the seed of men (2:43) as they did in Genesis 6:1-4.  But fallen angels like that are associated with “iron” (Rev. 9:1-10), and so were the giants they fathered (Deut. 3:11; I Sam. 17:4-7).  All of this is why the Lord said that they’ll be “marrying and giving in marriage” in the Tribulation (Mt. 24:37-39).

The “clay” of the image the king saw represents people (Job 4:18, 19; Isa. 64:8).  So Antichrist’s kingdom will be made up of the seed of fallen angels mixed with people.  They will mingle with the seed of men, but they won’t “cleave” to them (v. 43).  The mingling refers to fathering children (cf. Ezr. 9:1, 2), but cleaving means to mingle and stay with someone (Gen. 2:24; Deut. 11:22).  Those fallen angels will be more of the “love ‘em and leave ‘em” type of deadbeat-dad men.

That means Antichrist’s kingdom will be one nation, but “divided” (Dan. 2:41), as Babylon was one nation but was “divided” to the one nation of Media-Persia (Dan. 5:28).  When verse 42 says the nation will be “broken,” the word broken there means not strong.  It will be “partly strong, and partly broken”—strong as the fallen angels, but weak as the men with whom their seed will share the kingdom.

The “toes” of the nation represent ten kings (Dan. 7:7; Rev. 17:3-12).  Years ago, prophecy preachers started saying the Rapture must be “very near” after ten nations formed The European Common Market.  But God says these ten kings will receive power as kings “one hour with the beast” (Rev. 17:12), so they cannot rise until he rises.

We see a type of them in Psalm 83:1-8 though, which suggests they will be kings of Mideastern nations, not European nations.  When they rise and start their saber-rattling to get people to fear them more than God, people will have to remember that God says not to join their “confederacy” (Isa. 8:12, 13) or else be “broken to pieces” (8:9) by the 2nd coming of Christ, as Daniel predicts again in Daniel 2:44.

“These kings” (v. 44) are the ten kings that will rise and be broken to pieces by the kingdom that God will set up in that day.  It was the kingdom that the Lord said was “at hand” in His day (Mt. 4:17), but was put on hold when the Jews rejected it when they stoned Stephen.  But it’s coming!  And when it does, “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isa. 2:4).

God’s kingdom will not be “left to other people” (v. 44), as the kingdom of Babylon was left to the Medes and Persians, and their kingdom was left to the Greeks, and their kingdom was left to the Romans.  God’s kingdom will “stand for ever” (v. 44), although after the first 1,000 years it will stand forever on the new earth (Rev. 20:7—21:1).

After telling the king all that, Daniel knew it was a lot to take in.  After all, he’d just outlined the entire course of human history to come!  So in case the king missed any of it, he summed it up in verse 45.  And all of this means you don’t have to worry that the world will end in a nuclear holocaust, or in a flood caused by global warming, etc.  Daniel just told you how it will end, and I believe him.  How about you?

The king was so grateful to Daniel and the three Hebrews for interpreting his dream that he gave them positions in the government of Babylon (Dan. 2:46-49)  “The gate” (v. 49) is where elders of cities met to discuss business (cf. Pr. 31:23).

Video of this sermon is available on YouTube: The Unidentified Nation – Daniel 2:40-49