Today's broadcast, dull, but important, so stay tuned for key life. That's Steve Brown, he's no guru, but he loves Jesus Christ. He loves the Bible and he loves the teacher. A program is key life, and here is Steve with a teaching for today. Steve? Thanks, Mike. If you have your Bible, open it to Daniel 2 as we continue with our study in the book of Daniel. We took some time yesterday to look at Daniel 2, 20 through 23, and then Daniel 2, 27 through 30. And how careful Daniel was to give God credit where credit is due. I often will pray for people who are ill or going through a difficult time. And then I say at the end, let us covenant together before God, that it's God, meet your need, that he will get all the credit all on it. Well, that's what Daniel did, and that's what we should do. And yesterday suggested that that's just simply good manners. Now, if you have your Bible, look at Daniel 2, 31 through 45. Here it is. You owe King, this is talking about the dream, the King. You owe King, we're watching, and behold, a great image, this great image, whose splendor was excellence stood before you, and its form was awesome. The image's head was a fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze. Its legs of iron and feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You watched, while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on the feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like shuff 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. This is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the King. You owe King, our King of Kings. For God, if heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory. Now that's politics. And wherever the children of men dwell are the beasts of the field of the birds of heaven, he has given them into your hand, as made you ruler over them all. You are this head of gold. Now the truth, well, that is true, it's just politics. But after you shall arise another kingdom, inferior to yours, then another, a third kingdom of bronze which will rule over all the earth, and the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron in as much as iron breaks in pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes that kingdom will break in pieces and crush with others. Whereas you saw the feed and the toes partly of potters 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. And as the toes of the feed 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 of the kingdoms, and it shall stand forever in as much 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 fewer, or sure, doing the best I can. Let me give you what's being taught here, and I mentioned this yesterday, they're going to talk a little bit about it today. I don't know anybody that takes a lot of time looking at this text that doesn't understand that this giant colossus represents Babylon, the Meadow Persian Empire, Greece, and Rome. When you get to the toes, there's some difference of interpretation, some would say that the dindos, and incidentally the number of toes, is not given here, represent the revived Roman Empire, and the revived Roman Empire will be presided over by the Andy Christ. Now, that could be, but frankly, there is no indication here of a time between the last kingdom and the revived Roman Empire, and you've got to do a lot of forcing to make it fit here. There are those who would say that when the stone cut out by no human hand, the Messiah, does his work against the kingdoms? That is clearly the millennium. Well, that may be true, too, but there's certainly no indication that this is true in this text. Another interpretation takes its thrust from the fourth averse, where the point is made clearly that the kingdom is a divine origin, and that it grows along with the emergence of the other kingdoms. Now, this would be a view which says that the kingdom of God is not just a future time, eschatological kingdom, but a present one consisting of all who belong to the people of God. That may be true, too, but the text doesn't say that. So whatever your interpretation, there are clear things up on which you may be certain in terms of prophecy, and I mentioned them yesterday. What are they? God's in control. He's in control of every nation. He's in control of Al-Qaeda. He's in control of Israel. He's in control of the Saudis. He's in control of our country. He is the one who has written the script, and he knows what he's doing. And then secondly, in the end, God, when Jesus returns, will be absolutely and totally victorious. I don't know about you. I get confused with the toes, but I'm not confused about God's control or Jesus' ultimate victory. You think about that? Amen. Well, we'll continue with the text tomorrow. I just want to give you a little flavor of some of the things we're going to see later on. We're going to get into some very detailed prophetic part. It's my practice on Wednesday to answer some questions. Hey, incidentally, a reminder, key life is a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, ECFA. It's a widely recognized group as a Christian financial organization to assure ethical monetary practices by its members. And also, be sure to check out our webpage. It's www.keylife.org. If you go there, you can hear what I've said today and previous 30 broadcasts that are archived there. There's a minute thinks spot every day. A lot of good material to get you and those you love home with freedom and joy and faithfulness to Christ as you're counting achievement. And by the way, if you're listening from jail or prison, we have this Crossroads Bible Institute program for you. It's absolutely free and it is dynamite. If you'd like to be a part of it, give us a call or drop us a note and we'll make sure that you get the application. It's absolutely free and you're really going to like it, but you got to be in jail or prison in order to take it. You can get it that. You can write questions and get answers by sending them to key life post office box 5,000 Madeleine Florida, 32794. Or key life Canada post office box 32150, Cambridge, Ontario, N3H5N3, or you can email us at steveitkeylife.org with your regular mailing address if you'd like an answer. And by the way, you always get an answer from me or a staff member on the broadcast or in the magazine. And use the 1-800 number, not for questions, but order free tapes, the free magazine, the free booklets are to make a contribution. Alright, let's turn to some of these questions. This is from New Hampshire. I lost both of my parents at a young age. Now that I am a Christian, I live with terrible guilt and pain that my parents may not have been saved. Is there a chance of salvation after death? No, friend, there really isn't. The Bible gives no indication. It says that it is appointed unto man once to die and after that to judge him as. But let me tell you something, you trust God. It's not good to sit around and say, well, I know that so and so isn't hell. I know their lost. There's no way they could be saved. We create these elaborate views to teach people how to do evangelism, tremendous theologies on evangelism, all the words that have to be spoken and the understanding that has to be received. Do you know how you get saved? You say, help Jesus. That's it, babe. And you got it. And we just don't know. If your parents had any idea about Jesus and his death on the cross and they turned to him at the last moment, the way the thief did on the cross, and I'm convinced that a lot of people do, especially those within the family of believers. And I know how you feel about your parents, and I know that that worries you a lot. But let it go, and you trust God who is always good and who is always good all the time. He will do right. He will be just you trusting and you might be surprised. I'm convinced we're going to find a lot of people in heaven. We didn't expect there. And especially a lot of people who are in the families of those who became believers. I think we're going to be quite surprised. So it doesn't do any good to surmise about it, friend. Just let it go. So, trust God with it. You gone about your life. You'll do right. You can trust it. This is from Ontario, Canada, who is responsible when bad things happen. Probably you. I mean, everything bad that happens in the world is your fault. That's you think that listening to somebody. If the locust attacked the crop in a third world country, you say, what did I do wrong? Or if there is a draw somewhere and people are starving, you say, it's got to be my fault. That's the idea of corporate guilt. Let me taste something. First, bad things happen to people because people do really dumb things. Bad things happen to people because politicians do dumb things. Bad things happen to people because they make really bad choices. But ultimately, God's in charge of every bit of that. I don't think God looks down and says, I'm going to send an earthquake or I'm going to kill a baby or I'm going to cause an automobile accident. But I think that at the moment of creation, God was quite aware of every implication of His creation. And therefore, ultimately, in the sense of creation, He was sovereign and understood every act that would ever happen. And I think when we get home, we'll ask Him, would you explain that to us? And we would say, when He would say, well, if you have a million years and you're willing to sit still, I'll try to get you to understand it. But bottom line, if I could have done it a better way, I would have done it a better way, but this is the best way. So I would say that God ultimately is responsible for everything. And ultimately, all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. But I would also say, don't skew the responsibility that human beings have and the bad stuff that happens. Bad stuff happens sometimes because we do bad things. Well, I'm out of time. That's a shame because I had profound things to say to that question. Actually, I told you everything I know about it, so it is time for me to go. Hey, listen, whenever you write a call, would you give us the call letters of this great station? A lot of people make this broadcast possible and we like to know who they are. And, oh, yeah. Key Life is a listener-supported production of Key Life Network.