Pennsylvania Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Prophecies of Hope

Gary Gibbs

01 Our Day in Bible Prophecy

Lesson 1, Our Day in Bible Prophecy Hi, welcome to Prophecies of Hope.

I'm so glad that you've chosen to go on this little journey with us.

And maybe you're just going to be looking at this first session and decide if you want to continue studies and if that's the case, that's completely okay.

Because you know, God's leading each 1 of us and sometimes we have an experience with God in the past and we just want to expand on it.

And other times it's just, I wonder what this Christianity is about.

So no matter where you are in your place with God and relationship with him, I welcome you to Prophecies of Hope.

And I also wanna introduce Dee Casper and Christy Rodriguez.

We're gonna study the Bible, the key prophecies of the Bible together and see how God leads us.

1 of the things that I like to share with people about prophecies of hope is our goal is not to tell people what to believe.

We got enough people in our lives trying to tell us what to believe, right?

And so sometimes even Christians come across as real heavy handed.

They're gonna tell everybody what to believe and then that gets confusing because there's so many different beliefs, right, within Christianity.

And so I don't like that, and I know a lot of people don't like that.

So our goal here is just to get into the Bible and let the Bible explain itself.

And a lot of people don't realize that, that when you look at the scripture, the scripture actually unlocks its own meanings.

And so my goal with you and in our studies is just to give people the tools so that when they're studying the Bible on their own, they're reading it, they can look and go, oh, I know how to figure this out because there's so much here.

You can't give enough Bible studies to cover it all.

So, but if we can give people the tools to understand the Bible, then it unlocks everything in the Bible and it can be a lifelong experience, growing, reading the Word of God.

So that's our purpose and my goal for you and my goal for this series is that if you can just get closer to God and learn better how to understand the Bible and the Bible prophecies, then we've accomplished our goal because we know that the Holy Spirit will lead each of us in the way that he wants us to go.

And if you're a new Christian, some of the terminology that I use, like Holy Spirit and all, hopefully that will become obvious to you as we go along, or if you're not a Christian, some of this terminology will be explained as we study.

Hey, 1 of the things I like to do when we study the Bible, I believe it's a spiritual book, and I believe there is a God out there who wants us to understand it, is to pray and ask God to lead and guide us and to send His Spirit to help us.

So, D, would you mind praying and asking God to be with us?

God in heaven, we just thank you to have this opportunity to seek understanding as we're studying your word, and we pray that you would send your spirit to guide us, that you would give us wisdom and understanding, and that you would allow this text to speak to our hearts and our minds and the things that we deal with in our day-to-day life.

So I wanna start with just kinda why would you even wanna study Bible prophecy?

You know, because it may sound like it's like the most complicated part of the Bible, right?

And when we think of Bible prophecy, which book do we normally think of?

Yeah, so when you get in there, I remember when I first thought, I wanna understand prophecy, I picked up and I started reading Revelation and that was during the big drug culture.

I thought somebody was tripping on acid or something because there's all these beasts coming up out of the sea and all that, and I could not make sense of it.

I didn't understand the keys to unlock it.

So why would you wanna spend your time in that rather than the Gospels?

Well, they're all inspired, and they all should get our attention at some phase in our life and point in our life.

But Bible prophecy, what I find is Bible prophecy brings the whole Bible together.

You know, the book of Revelation we were just talking about has 404 verses and somebody at research has said 276 of those verses are referring back to other scripture in the Old Testament.

So there's a lot of connectiveness to other parts of the Bible.

Someone once said all the books of the Bible meet and end in Revelation.

So when you study Revelation or other prophecies, it takes you out into the rest of the Bible.

And then it creates this timeline, this historical sequence, and then you start making sense of the Bible.

But even more importantly, it starts making sense of man's history.

What's going on in our world and where is it going?

And so prophecy I think is really powerful in that way.

But then even transcending that, probably the best reason to study prophecy is because God says we should study prophecy.

So I wanna look at 2 Bible texts that tell us that we need to be studying Bible prophecy.

And you don't have to be a scholar to study it.

You just need to understand the keys of how to do it and that's what we'll be sharing with you in Prophecies of Hope.

So if you have your Bible and we have ours here, why don't we turn to Revelation chapter 1 to begin with and we'll just read a text there in Revelation 1 that endorses the study of Bible prophecy.

Revelation chapter 1, that's the last book of the Bible.

So why don't we read verse 3, and Christy, I wonder if you could read that for us.

Yes, it says, "'Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it, for the time is near.

So, you got this, you're fortunate, you're favored, you're happy.

Something good's going to happen here, right?

I've met people, maybe you have too, that said, oh, you don't want to read Revelation, that's just going to confuse you.

I just thought, I'm just going to treat the Bible as if there's 65 books and just kind of, you know, hold it off.

Right, Yeah, I'll just hold it off for later because I just wasn't sure what to do with it.

For a long time early on in my Christian experience, I felt the same way.

It's like, I'm not gonna be able to understand this.

And yet, God says there's a blessing in this book.

And then he tells us there's 3 things that we should do, right?

So what are the 3 things we do to get the blessing?

To read, to hear, and to keep the words that are written.

I just want to pause here because I mentioned we want to give people the tools, right?

So a lot of people when they read the Bible, the first thing they do is they go, what does it mean?

02 The Mark of the Beast Issue

Well, welcome back to Prophecies of Hope.

I hope that you were able to join us for our first lesson on Daniel 2, where D.

Casper and Christine Rodriguez and I discussed Daniel Chapter 2.

And, you know, as we think about those things, they're just, they're so relevant to us today in our lives and the time we live, to know that there's a God that really has things under control.

You know, things are going all right for you, and I hope that things are going okay for you, and that this Bible study is just kind of enriching your life.

I find that when we study the Bible together like this, that God just starts speaking to us a bit more.

You know, you start getting a clearer connection to God, and I hope that you're experiencing that as well.

Hey, I gave you Bible study guides last time we were together, and I hope you got the Bible study guide and were able to go through it, because last thing we want to do is just to listen to us and kind of take our word for it.

You know, Our goal is, as I said before, is not to tell people what to believe, but to give people the keys to figure it out on their own with them and the Holy Spirit.

So I trust that you're taking some time between these studies to actually open your Bible, read the text again, and use the study guide and kind of read through it.

You can highlight, you can make notes, but make it your own and prayerfully just go, God, what are you trying to say to me?

That's really so important because As we grow in our studies, we want God to speak to each of us, and He'll do that in individual ways.

And so, as you consider what we studied last time, Daniel 2, is there anything that you want to share that you found?

Yeah, I was just kind of curious on how the story ends.

We ended in verse 45 last time that Daniel says the dream is certain, the interpretation is sure, and it seems as if the king kind of gets it.

In verse 46 of Daniel 2, it says, Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face, prostrate before Daniel, and commanded that they should present an offering of incense to him." This is fascinating because, you know, a humiliated prisoner of war is being bowed down to by the king of the known world.

And then in verse 47, it says, "...the king answered Daniel and said, truly your God is the God of gods, the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, since you could reveal this secret." And so then Daniel gets promoted and he petitions the king and he becomes a chief administrator over all the wise men.

And Daniel petitions the king and his 3 friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, also get promoted over the affairs of the province of Babylon.

And so, pretty powerful ending there, too.

You know, to think that he goes from death, threatened with death, to a promotion.

And it was all because he was faithful and willing to be used by God.

A lot of times I think when we get threatened by something, it's like self-preservation kicks in and where can I run, where can I hide?

And we don't think about, well, there's a God in Heaven.

You know, there's a God in Heaven who can see me through this.

It makes me think about our study today in Daniel 3, is that if we're loyal to God, God will be loyal to us, and we'll come out better on the other side.

Christy, any thoughts that you want to share?

Yeah, I think it's interesting how like Daniel, when he gets promoted, he doesn't just think about himself, but he also tells the king about his friends.

And he's like, hey, these guys are smart too.

Yeah, because they were there with him in this whole thing.

Because Daniel said, I haven't received this understanding of this dream for any goodness about me, but it's all about God.

And that was a different spirit than the king.

Yeah, and there's almost a sense in which the king is humbled here, right?

So it kind of makes you think like, okay, I think he gets it now.

But we're going to find out today, he got it for a while, and then it kind of wore off.

And then we're going to find that it takes a while.

Really, it's very interesting as you study Daniel, and we'll see this in our studies, the king ultimately gets converted.

I think, it's been a while since I've read this, but I think it's like over a 40-year period that it takes for this King to get converted.

It's like 30 to 40 years, and it takes a while for Him to come to God, which is a shame, because the sooner we give our life to God, the longer we have to walk with Jesus, right?

You know, it's just we could experience His joy sooner in life if we give our life to Him.

You see the longsuffering of God here, which is encouraging, but at the same time, we're not guaranteed to have 30 to 40 years.

Like, if you know something's true, now's the time to decide.

Hey, so I hope that you've gotten something out of your, our discussion on this and maybe there, if you're meeting in a little group or with somebody else, that you have the time to share as well, what you got from Daniel chapter 2, but we're getting ready to start with Daniel chapter 3.

But I just wanna underscore, it's really important that you take the time to study the study guide yourself, fill in all the blanks.

I find people like to skip that last question because that's the question of, what difference does it make in my life?

And so, yeah, put a yes in there, and honestly, if you feel like a no, then put a no in there, but fill in that last 1, because that's how we grapple with, all right, what am I going to do with this?

So, you want to fill in all those questions.

But why don't we begin with prayer, because it's a spiritual book, and we're asking God to reveal Himself to us.

So, we'd like to pray and ask Him to do that.

So, Christy, would you mind leading us in prayer?

Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you so much that we have the opportunity to open your Word.

I pray that you send the Holy Spirit to guide our thoughts and our minds as we reason.

And we pray all these things in Jesus' name, amen.

So the Mark of the Beast issue is what we call this.

We're gonna have a part 2 on the Mark of the Beast and many parts, actually sub-parts in between that because to understand the mark of the beast, you have to understand who the beast is.

We'll be covering that in a couple lessons from now.

But the mark of the beast is often a fearful thing for people, isn't it?

You know, you see it in movies, you see the 666, and it sounds demonic, it sounds scary, and I've met people who actually are just afraid to study Revelation because of these type of things, and I don't want anybody to be afraid of studying prophecies of hope.

That's why we call it, it's a prophecy of hope.

It's not a prophecy of fear and doom and gloom because all these prophecies, as we saw in our last study, they end with Jesus coming.

What a glorious thing, the end of death and sorrow and sin and tears and All of that ends when Jesus comes.

God wants to communicate something to us about the Mark of the Beast.

And what I find is the depiction, often in movies and even in Christianity, is often just not really right on target.

And I wanna look at it briefly here in Revelation 13 and just kinda lay the foundation.

And I want to dispel a myth that like virtually everybody believes and I don't understand why.

Well, I do understand why, but if you read the text and say, what does it say?

You'll see it's a myth, and that myth is that the mark of the beast is 666, you know, tattooed in somebody's head or hand, And we're going to see here right away that that's not what the mark of the beast is.

There's a lot of context we could cover, and we'll jump back and forth in it.

03 Bible Secrets to Personal Peace

Lesson 3, Bible Secrets to Personal Peace.

I hope that you have been able to join us for our first 2 lessons where we covered 2, 500 years of Earth's history that God predicted before it ever happened.

And we also looked at the Mark of the Beast issue and what it isn't and what it will be.

And Dee and Christy, we had some good studies, those first 2 studies.

And I appreciate the insights that I've gotten from both of you.

And that's 1 of the reasons I enjoy doing this.

And in your place where you're studying this, maybe you're studying in a group, we learn from each other, don't we?

And we all had different perspectives, different backgrounds, and we might even have different religious backgrounds, but we learn from each other.

It's 1 of the reasons I enjoy doing this, you know.

And just the whole concept that The Bible explains itself, doesn't it?

You know, that whole thing about the mark of the beast being 666 and we let the Bible explain itself and saw, ah, it's much different than just 666.

As you were able to do your lesson, and I hope you did your lessons at home where you're watching this and you're able to fill in the blanks and actually do the study guide because it makes a big difference, really, when you study it yourself, you're reading it yourself.

You'll get your own insights and things will come together and we're limited on time in our Bible study, We're not sharing everything that we could.

So you'll want to read through these and fill in the blanks and make your own notes and you'll get a lot more out of it.

So as you consider what we studied last time, any added things that you want to share that you saw or thought about?

I think just a question that came to mind was like, how did they on that 1 day become like so solid and so like determined to not budge in their faith?

And it dawned on me when you kind of look through the book of Daniel in chapter 1 and 2 and so forth leading into this, they were just faithful in every duty.

It wasn't like just in this 1 moment they were super faithful, like became superhuman or something.

They just made a hard and fast decision early in their experience, whether it be small decisions or big decisions.

My biggest goal in life is to be faithful to God.

And if I'm faithful to God in the small things, it increases the likelihood that I'll be faithful to God in the big things.

And so, just a practical lesson that maybe I should value the little things that are required of me in my day-to-day life, because how I handle those decisions will make me into who I will be when that big decision time comes.

I think it's interesting how they were brought to this completely different country.

Their names were changed, And they had to go to this school that was totally foreign to what they were used to.

And they were faithful in the little things, like in diet and who they're going to worship.

And then when they came to this big test, they were able to stand strong.

And I also really love how in verse 16, it says that, O King Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.

They already knew who they were and they had confidence in who they were.

And I think that's something that we can learn from.

And that came from standing faithful to God.

They discover, you know, they were young men when they started, they were teenagers.

Because they were taken captive, they were ripped from their families.

And I mean, they were sexually assaulted.

And yet, like why remain faithful, you know, in a worldly sense?

If all these bad things happened in my life, why should I even stand for God anymore?

And many Israelites took that position in Babylon, but these men didn't.

They chose that we're just going to stand our ground and be faithful no matter what's going on around us, because God is good and God will be with us.

And God, all of those moments up to this point, it was honored in Daniel 1, God honors them in 1, God honors them in chapter 2, and God honors them in chapter 3.

Every time they stand for Him, there's a visible and a very clear manifestation of God's favor given to them in each chapter, which I think is amazing.

You might be wondering how they were sexually assaulted.

They were made eunuchs, Dee said, and eunuch was castrated.

Yeah, so they could have blamed everything on God.

And we do go through hard things in this life.

And you can say, well, God's in charge of everything.

And we can be victimized while on this earth because we just live on a battlefield.

You know, he is going to heal the cancer.

He's going to heal the brokenhearted and the brokenness that comes from the abuse we might have experienced.

That will all be healed 1 day at the return of Jesus.

And the Bible says we won't need, we'll live so long and in so much bliss throughout eternity that the former things won't even come to mind.

So the main thing is while we're here, is to be faithful to God.

And I think there's a part too, in the trials that we face right now, while God may not be the author of them, and I don't think he's the author of evil, that God can take those things and through us learning to depend on Him, then He can help us grow in a relationship with Him that then can be turned into a blessing to other people.

You know, Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 1 that we can comfort others with the comfort that we've received ourselves.

Other wise men were saved because Daniel interpreted the dream.

In the New King James it reads that they start killing people when Daniel and his friends go to pray.

And so the fact that there's this process that the favor that God shows you doesn't just stay with you.

Other people are blessed as a result of it.

Well today we're going to kind of tie off this thing with Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 4.

So why don't we begin with a word of prayer?

Father in heaven, thank you so much for your word.

And just, you know, we're studying prophecy.

We're learning about things to come, but you're also teaching us about how we can live for you.

And so Father, as we open your word today and we look at Daniel chapter 4, may your Holy Spirit be with us, speak to our hearts, personalize this for us, And may we find the peace in you that we're going to read that Nebuchadnezzar found.

All right, let's turn in our Bibles to Daniel chapter 4.

And I hope that you're following along in your Bible as well.

There's nothing like actually reading the word of God.

So about 30 years or so, a little more than 30 years since the beginning of this.

Series

Prophecies of Hope

08 God’s Great Judgment

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Prophecies of Hope

03 Bible Secrets to Personal Peace

58m

Prophecies of Hope

13 Revelation’s Glorious Rapture

52m

Prophecies of Hope

16 The Truth About Hell

55m

Prophecies of Hope

12 Power for Living

40m

Prophecies of Hope

07 The Longest Time Prophecy

54m

Prophecies of Hope

18 Door to a New Life

59m

Prophecies of Hope

25 The Unpardonable Sin

1h

Prophecies of Hope

22 Revelation’s Two Women

1h 9m

Prophecies of Hope

09 Satan’s Secret Strategy

43m

Prophecies of Hope

19 The Abomination of Desolation

59m

Prophecies of Hope

05 A Bold Attack on God

41m

Prophecies of Hope

24 Modern Prophets

52m

Sound Doctrine