followHIM - Daniel 1-6 Part 1 • Dr. Lili De Hoyos Anderson • Oct. 31 - Nov. 6

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

Can we take away someone’s agency? Dr. Lili de Hoyos Anderson explores personal revelation and faith amidst trial in the Book of Daniel.Please rate and review the podcast!Show Notes (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese): https://followhim.co/old-testament/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/follow-him-a-come-follow-me-podcast/id1545433056Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/followhimpodcastInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/followhimpodcastSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/15G9TTz8yLp0dQyEcBQ8BYThanks to the follow HIM team:Steve & Shannon Sorensen: Executive Producers, SponsorsDavid & Verla Sorensen: SponsorsDr. Hank Smith: Co-hostJohn Bytheway: Co-hostDavid Perry: ProducerKyle Nelson: Marketing, SponsorLisa Spice: Client Relations, Editor, Show NotesJamie Neilson: Social Media, Graphic DesignWill Stoughton: Video EditorKrystal Roberts: Translation Team, English & French Transcripts, WebsiteAriel Cuadra: Spanish TranscriptsIgor Willians: Portuguese Transcripts"Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise" by Marshall McDonaldhttps://www.marshallmcdonaldmusic.com

Welcome to Follow Him, a weekly podcast dedicated to helping individuals and families with their Come Follow Me study. I'm Hank Smith. And I'm John, by the way. We love to learn. We love to laugh. We want to learn and laugh with you. As together, we follow Him. Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of Follow Him. My name is Hank Smith. I am your host, and I am here with my co-host, who is skillful in all wisdom and cunning in knowledge. His name's John, by the way. Welcome, John. Thank you. I will try to live up to that one. You are. John, when I was reading Daniel chapter one, I thought, John, by the way, all the way, skillful in wisdom and cunning

and knowledge. It wasn't the youthful part though, was it? No, I actually skipped that part. Hey, John, we are going to be studying the book of Daniel today, and we have a guest who has been beloved to follow him a couple of times. So tell us who's with us. Yes, we are so glad, aren't we, Hank, to have Dr. Lily Anderson back with us. She came before. It was one of the ones I heard the most comments about and really hit home to a lot of people,

hit home literally because she talks so much about marriage and family. So let me read this bio again for those of you who may not have heard the first one, you'll probably want to go back and listen to it. Lily De Hoyos Anderson, a first generation American. Her mother is French and her father is Mexican. She was born in a little border town in Texas, but soon her family moved to the Midwest. She grew up in Michigan and Indiana. When she started high school, both her parents began teaching at BYU. So the family moved to Provo. She graduated from Provo High School. Dr. Anderson attended BYU, graduated in sociology. In fact, social science runs in the family. Both her parents are retired professors of sociology. And her husband, Chris Anderson, is also a social worker with Church

Family Services. And she has a wonderful story. After about 20 years of being a full-time homemaker, Dr. Anderson completed her own master's in social work degree. She is a licensed clinical social worker, has a full-time practice in individual marriage and family counseling. Later, Sister Anderson completed her PhD in marriage, family, and human development at BYU and for several years taught part-time there for the School of Family Life. The Andersons have eight children. This is a fun part.

They are the Alphabet Kids, Adam, Bethany, Caitlin, Dominic, Eden, Faith, Graydon, and Harper, and 37 grandchildren. Is that up to date? 37, yes. That's awesome. She's published in the Ensign, various journals. Her book, Choosing Glory, is available in paperback and in Kindle. And she also has a podcast called Choosing Glory, which I'm sure our listeners will want to go and listen to. She loves to be able to teach, testify, and defend the faith that she loves in a medium that is accessible to people everywhere.

Thank you so much for coming back, Dr. Anderson. We're so happy to have you. Thank you. It's fun to be back. Really appreciate the opportunity. It's a great way to share the gospel with you guys. Enjoy it. We have a lot of fun. I'll say, John, that the two episodes Lily did, I'm going to just give a shout out to and hope anybody who is maybe joining us just recently and hasn't heard those. The first one was on Doctrine and Covenants 49 and 50. Go back to last year and listen to that episode. And then the one earlier this year was on Genesis 37 through 41. Both fantastic, really worth your time. Take the time to go back and listen to those.

It's really a lot of fun. Great material. The scriptures are just full of amazing things. It's great to be there. I'm just going to add, just because I know some people have asked about this, the website that I've had for years looks ancient, and some people don't know if it's functional, but it has been finally upgraded and updated. So if you want any information, come to lilyanderson.com and we'll be announcing new projects. I'm hoping to get another book out early next year on healthy boundaries. That's Lily L-I-L-I. S-O-N, Anderson S-O-N, right? And you'll get it. lilyanderson.com. All right, Lily, the book of Daniel, how do we want to approach this? What do we do? Our curriculum asks us to look at the first

six chapters. Although, honestly, I think I'm going to say a few things about that second section, but we'll kind of keep that brief since it's not really in the selected chapters for the curriculum. But Daniel is an amazing prophet. He is an amazing man. He had an amazing ministry. He was involved in so many incredibly important events that happened during this time of captivity for many of the Jews who had been brought into Babylon. And I just want to start by saying the meaning of Daniel's name in Hebrew is, God is the defender of my rights, which is really lovely when you think about that. God is the defender of my rights. Now, obviously, their rights had been abrogated when they were brought into captivity, and this had been prophesied by so many of the prophets

of Israel and Judah, trying to warn them that if they did not repent, that these things would happen. And they did. That doesn't mean that they were all wicked, but that as a nation, they rejected God, and so these things were fulfilled. Certainly, Daniel and his confederates here, sometimes referred to as cousins, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And it is kind of interesting that we tend to refer to Daniel by his Hebrew name, but we refer to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego by their Babylonian names, right? And that's funny. We do have in the record their Hebrew names, but they're not really referred to in that way. So we tend to know them by their Babylonian names and Daniel by

his Hebrew name. He also had a Babylonian name, and that's used a couple of times, but we know him as Daniel. Belteshazzar, I think. Yes, Belteshazzar. I don't know if it sounds as good. Belteshazzar in the lion's den. It doesn't have the ring to it that we like. Yeah. But God is the defender of my rights. So even in captivity, the rights that mattered, his opportunity to choose God, to exercise his agency. And I want to make a little point here about that.

We often confuse agency with freedom. That's a big mistake. They're not the same thing. So I think that sometimes we have parents asking, well, I don't want to take away my kids' agencies. And I'm like, you can't. That's a gift bestowed by God himself. You can't take away anybody's agency. No one could take away Daniel's agency. He was always able to choose God or not. And that's what agency is. It's not the same as unlimited freedom, where you can go where you want to and do what you want to and have what you want. That's a whole different thing. Freedom is a negotiable commodity, and they lost the negotiations

with Babylon when they were conquered. So their freedom was abrogated, but never their agency. So again, just a little note for parents, or in other situations, stop saying things like, I don't want to take away this person's agency. That would be way above your pay grade. It's not going to happen. You could bury me in a stone box a mile deep. I can still choose to worship God or I can choose to reject him. So agency continues even in captivity.

And that is the right. God is a defender of my rights. The name of Daniel and the meaning of that name, he always had that right. And he exercises it again and again in this record. He chooses to exercise faith and obedience and trust in God instead of rejecting him. And even at the cost of his freedom, even at the cost potentially of his life, as we'll see in many situations, the same with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So kind of an important point there.

I've got to say in that vein that I have a son who is probably listening, and he knows who he is, who believes that any rule placed upon him is taking away his agency. If we have any rule. I thought we had agency. So I won't name any names, but I will just say, you know who you are. And you just heard it from Dr. Anderson that rules do not take away agency. They're negotiated commodities. We all give up freedoms in order to get benefits, right? Like I was driving down here to Provo today and I obeyed the speed limit. I would have rather

gone faster, but I give up that freedom in order to not end up in trouble or have to pay big fines or increase my insurance costs. You did give up some freedom in order to get the benefits. I pay taxes so I can be a citizen in good standing of this country. Anyway, so we do that all the time. We negotiate freedoms. We can do that when you're teenagers. They can come and try to negotiate those things. But then it's a negotiation. And it's like, well, look what we're doing for you. And we expect some things in return. Or while you're under our jurisdiction and our responsibility and stewardship, we need to make some parameters. So good luck to your son.

So even in captivity, Daniel has agency. Always. Whatever our circumstances, we can choose God or we can reject him. Now, I'm going to make another little point. It does tie into a prophecy of Isaiah earlier on that we'll review here. It mentions right in the first chapter of Daniel, looking at verse 7, I mean, it talks about verse 6, that here were some of the children of Judah that were brought to the palace, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Those are the three names of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Hebrew, right? Unto whom, verse 7, the prince of the eunuchs gave names. And that's where we hear their Babylonian names, Belteshazzar and to Hananiah Shadrach and Mishael Meshach and then Abednego, right?

Notice that they're under the stewardship of the prince of eunuchs. It is strongly suspected by a lot of Bible scholars and Jewish scholars as well that have this in their writings, writings of the prophets that they study, that these men were probably castrated and that they probably were made eunuchs, which is sad. It's a really sad reality. It doesn't affect Daniel's ability or the abilities of the others to gain revelation, to have tremendous faith, to fulfill their purpose on life with the exception of being able to marry. We have no record anywhere of Daniel marrying, which was pretty unusual. And he is almost always, well, actually, I don't think there's an exception that is known,

that when he's depicted in artwork, he doesn't have a beard. Even in his later years, Daniel is supposed to have lived well into his 90s, and it would be very unusual for a Jewish man not to have had a beard. But he's always depicted beardless, and this is also seen as an indication that he had been made into a eunuch. Here they are under the stewardship of the prince of eunuchs, So that does kind of indicate that connection. And the Isaiah verse that speaks about this, chapter 39, verse 6 and 7 says this, Behold, the days come that all that is in thine house and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left,

saith the Lord. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shall beget, shall they take away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. So Isaiah, seeing this day through prophecy, warns them. He warns them that if you continue on this path of defiance, there are going to be great losses to you and to your children. And some of your young men will become eunuchs in the palace of Babylon. Ripped away from their family and then abused like this. Traumatic. It's traumatic.

And then it affects their whole lives because they will not marry, they won't have children. So great losses because of somebody else's sin. And this does happen, but that does not prevent the Lord from magnifying us. Whatever somebody else takes away from us does not stop us from coming to the Lord, becoming His disciple, and having Him magnify who we are so that we can fulfill our purpose, remembering that all things will be restored to us in the millennium. You as a counselor have seen probably many traumatic, abusive childhoods turn into... Profitable, wonderful lives where people can go to the lord

and what does he promise that he will consecrate our afflictions for our good and having trust in that is so important because yes bad things happen to good people and life is unfair and the children suffer for the sins of the parents. This happens all the time on our planet. Thankfully, it doesn't happen in every case, but it certainly happens. Nevertheless, God can consecrate all of it for our good. He can magnify us in our weakness, in our injuries. He can help us on that path to healing, knowing that ultimate healing and complete restoration is to come. This is a temporary situation on this life. And if we let our losses become our entire vision, we miss the opportunity that God gives

us to make something of our lives, however they've been hurt. You don't see bitterness in Daniel. You don't see bitterness in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They have incredible trust in God. It's beautiful. And I think there's an important message there. John, it reminds me a little bit of your dad who had such a tough childhood, but was able to have such a tremendous, wonderful life. Yeah, I think about that a lot. And I talked about it yesterday in class. We were talking about the laborers in the vineyard who came in at different times and how you joined the church in your 20s. Oh, so you

got to as if... That's a bonus somehow. Yeah, as if that's a bonus, as if wickedness was happiness or something. And my dad would say, I never got to go to firesides. I never had a youth conference. I saw fires. I saw men dying around me. Yeah, his military, his World War II experiences, and so wonderful to have him find the gospel and to embrace it. Thanks for bringing that up, Hank, with an interesting childhood. I love that verse in Scripture that tells us that this is kind of the plan of God. And I had a client that put it in a nice way not long ago that I loved. And I don't know why I hadn't thought about this before, but maybe some of you have heard of the old efforts at alchemy. Remember that word, alchemy? And the idea was that these people who were kind of mystics and scientists, they thought, we're trying to turn lead into gold. That's what they wanted to do, was to take lead, which is cheap, and turn it into gold,

which is incredibly valuable. So I was talking to this client, a really great student of the scriptures, and he said, we can let the Lord do his alchemy. I thought, how brilliant and beautiful is that use of that term? Because that's what he does. He takes lead and turns it into gold in our lives if we let him. And you see that in Daniel's life. In spite of the trauma, taken away from home and family, put in the palace, probably made a eunuch, and God makes gold of him and of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It's beautiful. And then all those things which have been lost are restored because God is a restorer. It all works out in the end and nothing is lost to the righteous.

If we persist in righteousness, any losses are compensated for in abundance. And you know how the Lord measures. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. That's from Luke 6. So, it's going to be fine. And we can get lost in bitterness at the unfairness of life or not. And bitterness takes away our chance to participate in the Lord's alchemy. That's a great phrase. Can consecrate thy afflictions for thy gain. I'm reminded of Joseph Smith, all of your losses will be made up to you in the resurrection.

If you continue faithful by the vision of the Almighty, I have seen it. And I love that idea of God as a restorer and he'll give you better, beauty for ashes. Beauty for ashes. So many ways that he tells us this again and again, if we can listen, we can participate and partake of this amazing, amazing blessing. So, Daniel served under five kings, which is extraordinary that his

ministry covered five different administrations. The first three were Babylonian, and then we get Cyrus of Persia and Darius the Mede, who was actually a general of Cyrus'. So kind of two different conquering companies there. But the first, of course, is Nebuchadnezzar, and we hear him referred to a lot in these first six chapters. He plays a large part. We don't really hear of Nabonidus, who was the son of Nebuchadnezzar. So after Nebuchadnezzar dies, Nabonidus becomes the king, but he didn't like to rule and he didn't like being in the capital. So he kind of goes to another city and tries to make sort of an oasis city of that one. And he turns a lot of the governance over to his son. So the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar is Belshazzar. And Belshazzar is only king for one night, and we can talk about that later. And then Cyrus of Persia conquers Babylon and rules only one year, but has a significant interaction with Daniel during that time that we'll talk about. And then Cyrus' general, who was Darius the Mede,

rules after that, and again has a very close relationship with Daniel. So it's amazing that these are powerful men, powerful Gentile men who recognize in Daniel something amazing. They see that light, they see that wisdom, and they value it and promote him to great responsibility and learn from him and hear witnesses and even see witnesses of the power of the God of Israel, even in their Gentile state. And they tend to be pantheists in that time, meaning that they believed in lots of gods. But we even see Nebuchadnezzar

change that into understanding that there actually is a God, which is kind of a fascinating story, but let's not jump ahead too well. Daniel, he lived well into his 90s, it is supposed, an incredibly long administration. I also want to say, this is an amazing statement. Sir Isaac Newton, who was the inventor of calculus. We have the famous story of the apple falling. In high school, I did not like him. I did not like him. Had to learn too much about him. Well, calculus for sure. But yeah, but brilliant, brilliant man. So in fact, it was very common for people in his profession to be ordained as ministers, Anglican ministers, just because of his scientific studies and so on. And he refused being ordained as a minister because he did not believe in some of those

tenets. So here's what he wrote about Daniel. He who denies Daniel's prophecies undermines Christianity, which is founded on Daniel's prophecies concerning Christ. I'm going to read that again. This is quite the statement from this genius Christian man. He who denies Daniel's prophecies undermines Christianity, which is founded on Daniel's prophecies concerning Christ. And we'll tie that in as we go along, but it's quite the statement. So Daniel has been studied by so many religious scholars over the years because of the prophecies contained in

chapters 7 through 12, which, like I said, I think we should touch on them as we go, but we won't spend a ton of time on that. The first story we have in chapter 1, of course, is that here with the Prince of the Eunuchs, he's responsible for having these guys look wonderful and healthy and so on. So there are big portions of meat and wine that are given for that purpose. And Daniel and his associates there that are faithful to the gospel don't want to eat that rich food. They want to eat the simple foods of pulse that have been part of their teachings from their youth. And the prince of the eunuchs is concerned because he'll get in trouble if they don't flourish as well as the other young men in his charge. So, we have this experiment that is suggested in,

I guess, is it verse 12 there? Yeah, he says, Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days, and let them give us poults to eat, the footnote says foods made of seeds or grains or grains, pulse to eat and water to drink, then let our countenances be looked upon before thee, and the countenance of the children that eat of the portion of the king's meat, and as thou seest, deal with thy servants. That's right. So let's do a scientific little test here. It's a little medical test where you can do a before and after, and we've got a control

group because the other guys will be eating that and after, and we've got a control group because the other guys will be eating that rich food, and we won't. And then you can see how we flourish. And 10 days is a pretty quick turnaround for a study like that, but there was an apparent difference because after that time, he consents in verse 14 and 15, at the end of 10 days, their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which had eaten a portion of the king's meat. So it worked. And they said, the Lord will do this. They had faith that if they followed their eating code, that in spite of the fact that there was a lot of pressure to conform, and again, they must have been pretty nice guys right to begin with, because this guy who could get in trouble if they don't flourish, gave them this opportunity. So speaks a lot to how well they presented to others. They were not

obviously adversarial people. They were working to find collaboration. They were working to get along and to be able to have influence that's required. So we don't come in like gangbusters. You know, we're hearing a lot in conference these days and from our leaders about being peacemakers. Neil Anderson gave a wonderful speech last conference about peacemaking, but we're hearing that from various leaders in our church. President Nelson, get, verbal and otherwise. They didn't do that. They didn't come in there with an adversarial or combative attitude, even though they are captives and they have very limited choices. They obviously were peacemakers and are able then to ask for some things that people feel like granting to them because they're not troublemakers. And I think that's such a good lesson too. And then they show the truth of the blessing that comes from

obeying our Lord and God. And so, we see then in verse 17, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom. That's the compliment that Hank gave John today. And Daniel has understanding in all visions and dreams. So these gifts come, and they're tying it into their obedience, which makes perfect sense because God reveals his secrets to people who obey, to people that he can trust. And then in the last verse of chapter 20, almost the last verse, in all matters of wisdom and understanding that the king inquired of them, he found them 10 times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm. Well, yeah, God against sorcery.

Another little detail, if you'll forgive me, that I found interesting is that he did associate Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego associated with the other people in the court that were considered wise men. And as they mentioned here, they're called magicians and astrologers and so on. And it is suggested in some writings that it is because of Daniel's influence in his long tenure of being a counselor to kings and interpreter of dreams and so on, and because of his prophecies concerning the coming of Christ, that he would have taught those men of the East who were magicians, magi, astrologers of the coming of Christ and the signs concerning his birth.

And this may be why the three magi came to bring gifts to Christ. And that may have been under the direction of Daniel who knew when Christ would come and may have said, teach this to all the people who are coming, who are these wise men of the East, because there is a king coming and he should be worshiped and take these gifts to him because he will need them. That's awesome. This is coming. And the angel has shown me the time. So you be watching and these signs will appear.

And then you are to take these kingly gifts, these royal gifts to the real king, and it will bless him and his family when they need to go to Egypt. So in chapter two, we have the famous dream of Nebuchadnezzar. We throw around this term all the time in our era about narcissists. And there are so many YouTube videos on, you know, are you married to a narcissist or how to deal with a narcissist? And I kind of worry about that because I think we over-diagnose. And although there are some patterns, I like to say that narcissism isn't so much a disorder as it is a sin, because it's really just selfishness run amok, you know? So, I mean, can you recover from that? Yeah, you can repent,

and you don't have to be a narcissist your whole life. Even if we cross that line into some narcissistic behaviors or even a lot, we can repent. And yet, here we have kind of a real narcissist in Nebuchadnezzar, and we'll even see that he can change to an extent, at least, under the tutelage of Daniel and Daniel's God, who is the God. But here we see that Nebuchadnezzar, I mean, is so used to getting his way. His power was absolute. Whatever he said was done. There are legends. We're not sure if this is exactly true. There's some question about where these gardens were, but it is rumored, so to speak, historically

that there were these hanging gardens of Babylon that were one of the ancient wonders of the world because things should not have grown like that, but they used the river Euphrates and they had these screws that brought the water up into these terraced things that apparently he built because his wife missed her home, which had mountains. And Babylon didn't have the mountains. So he created these artificial mountains that were watered by this elaborate system because Nebuchadnezzar says, I need this for my wife. And so they go to work and they create all these marvels just because he said he wanted

it. So he had incredible power, incredible wealth, and anybody around would run at his beck and call. So here he dreams a dream. And in a typical narcissist fashion, even though he can't remember the dream, he's going to demand that his magicians of the court tell him what the dream is and then interpret it because it disturbed him. And they're like, well, can you tell us what it is? No. No, you tell me what it is. You tell me. And if not, I'm wiping you all out. And it would have been death to all of them, including Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, because they were

housed with these wise men, even though, like we say, their wisdom was 10 times that of their confederates. And look, one of them responds in verse 11 of chapter 2, it is a rare thing that the king requires. I mean, he's trying to hold back from crazy and insane and certainly unfair. And there is none other that can shoo it before the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh. Like, there's nobody on the planet who can do this for you. And the king except the gods whose dwelling is not with flesh. Like there's nobody on the planet who can do this for you. And the king gets angry. Verse 12, he's going to destroy all the wise men. And the decree goes forth in verse 13 that everyone should be slain. And they find

Daniel and his fellows where they are to kill them as well. And then in verse 15, Daniel says, why is the decree so hasty from the king? Can we pause for a moment? Daniel in verse 16 goes in and desires of the king that he would give him time and then he will show the king the interpretation. And then he goes and talks to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, his companions, and they all pray together for the mercies of the God of heaven, this is verse 18, concerning this secret, that they should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. In verse 19, the secret is revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. So they go exactly as we all should, petition the Lord for light, truth, understanding when

it's needful, and God, who knows all, will impart as appropriate for our circumstances. He knows when to give that information and when it's not the time. But in this case, it certainly was the time to get that. And he gives that in a night vision to Daniel, and Daniel blesses the God of heaven and bless him forever and ever. Wisdom and might are his. He changeth the time and the seasons. And he gives this beautiful kind of testimony of God's power. And he praises him. The next verses, he removeth kings and setteth up kings, giveth wisdom unto the wise, knowledge to them that know understanding, revealeth the deep and secret things, knoweth what's in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him. I thank thee and praise thee. It is a psalm. And bless you who

have given wisdom and might, and has made these known unto me. So then he goes to the guy with the messenger, and then he sets him up with the king. And in verse 27, he answers in the presence of the king and says, the secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shoo under the king, but there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets. Man, he is bold. He is a witness of Christ. He's always a witness of Christ. He never takes that honor unto himself and says, I got the answer.

He says, God had the answer. And then he reveals it according to his will to people on this planet. And he is a messenger of this great message. And so he tells him what the dream is. But look again, verse 30. But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living. Look at this incredible understanding and humility. It's not me, and I don't even want you to think I'm better than anybody else. I want to make that clear. I want to make that really clear, that the Lord reveals according to His will, for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation of the King, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart. So this is a blessing for Nebuchadnezzar as well. And then he says, this is what you saw, a great image, verse 31. And then he talks about this image of metal. And this is fascinating. This ties into some pretty

cool history, but the image's head is of fine gold, the breast and his arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, and his feet, part of iron and part of clay. And all of this has such specific meaning that's pretty exciting that we get to talk about today. And then in verse 34, this phrase that we're very familiar with in the restored church of Jesus Christ, thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay and break them to pieces. Then was the iron and clay and brass and silver and the gold broken to pieces together. And the wind carries it away. No place was found for them. And the stone that smote the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This is the dream. And we'll tell the

interpretation now. So first I'm telling you what you couldn't even remember. But as Nebuchadnezzar hears it, undoubtedly, he's saying like- He's sitting there, oh yeah. That's it. I forgot it, but that's the dream and it did disturb him. And now Daniel, through the goodness and revelation of God, is able to tell the king this. And then he says, you're the king of kings, for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom. And again, look at the boldness with which he tells this narcissistic king who has absolute power and anything at his beck and call. And he says, the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom.

You only have this because of God, yeah. Whether you know it or not, God is in charge. You think you did all this? Yeah. The walls around Babylon were so enormous, and they even give measurements in some of the histories, but I'm just going to say that at the top of the wall, it was wide enough that two chariots drawn by four horses each could race on the top of the wall. That's a really big wall. I mean, it's not just a turret for a guard to look out. So he's pretty full of himself and has all that power, but Daniel never, never quails at telling him it's God that has given you this. And then you are the head of gold at the end of verse 39. And then there will be another kingdom in verse 38. That is where the

head of gold is Nebuchadnezzar. And then another kingdom in 39 will arise that's inferior to thee. And then the third kingdom of brass and the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron. And then in verse 41, the kingdom shall be divided, but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, because that's what's mixed with the clay in the feet of the statue. And the toes of the feet are part of iron, part of clay. So the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken. And this is fascinating as we get in to talk about that. And then God will set up a kingdom in verse 44, which shall never be destroyed. His own kingdom back on the planet after the great apostasy, it has come to an end.

And the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and stand forever. For as much, verse 45, as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it break in pieces, the iron, the brass, the clay, silver, and gold, the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter, and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure. Another witness. Daniel is a witness of truth. He is a witness of Christ, a defender of all that truth in a situation in which he could lose his head at any moment or be cast into furnaces or cast

into the lions as he and his colleagues are. And Nebuchadnezzar falls on his face and worships Daniel. Verse 46, he says, of a truth it is that your God is a God of gods. Again, he's a pantheist, so he believes in lots of gods, but he says, wow, your God seems to be better than a lot of them, and a Lord of lords, and a revealer of secrets. So the king makes Daniel a great man. It's understood in Jewish tradition also that several times during Daniel's ministry with these kings, he's offered airship to the throne. Nebuchadnezzar apparently offers him to be an heir, and Daniel refuses. That's not his role, and he's not there to govern. He's given a lot of governance, and he certainly does handle things for the king. He wants to be a servant of the Lord and do what the Lord asks of him, but he does have

some pretty impressive moments here, and the kings admire him. We can see that as we go through these different administrations that he works with. The silver, which are the arms and the neck of the statue, is the Medeo-Persian empire. So that is Cyrus and Darius. And we see later that they don't have quite as much power as Nebuchadnezzar did, because they're actually bound by some of their own edicts in a way that Nebuchadnezzar is not. Nebuchadnezzar can do whatever he wants, but there's a change that's made in the government in so much that Cyrus and then Darius later with the lions doesn't feel like he has a choice, and his counselors in the kingdom, in so much that Cyrus and then Darius later with the lions doesn't feel like he has a choice. And his counselors in the kingdom hold him to something that he has said, which would

not have happened with Nebuchadnezzar. So there is a lessening of power that happens with the silver in the statue in the Medeo Persian Empire. That seems to happen during Queen Esther, her story as well. That's true. Because the king seems to say, I can't change certain laws. He's part of the Persian administration. Yeah. And you can see that because actually when people get rid of a king who has absolute power,

they often institute those kinds of protections that like, wait a minute. And this happened in Great Britain. Maybe some of you know a lot of this history where after King Richard the Lionheart, his brother John takes over, who is the bad guy in the Robin Hood stories. He becomes the king after anyway. And he is a really vile king who also kind of has this absolute power of royalty. And it is because of King John that the other nobles gather together in Great Britain and demand that he sign the Magna Carta. And the Magna Carta is one of those big beginning points of the Restoration, because it limits

the divine right of kings and holds them subject to some laws. And this allows for more growth towards freedom. It often comes as a result of somebody who abuses power. And then people kind of try to combine and say like, wait, this is too scary that you have this absolute power. So they put some restrictions. And that's the silver is the Medeo-Persian that has somewhat less power. And then bronze is Greece.

And in some of the prophecies of Daniel, the person who's being discussed there, it's pretty clearly Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great. And he made his kingdom huge from Southern Europe all the way over to India. Right. And then after Greece comes Rome. The iron is Rome. Those are the legs of iron, imperial Rome.

And then what's so fascinating here, if you look at the history, and many of you are probably familiar with this, but maybe some of you aren't, imperial Rome, which was the Caesars, those emperors of Rome and so on, morphs into papal Rome, meaning the Holy Roman Empire. But that's still Rome. The Vatican is in Rome. So we have this transition from this absolute power of the Roman emperors and Caesars into a church power, which is the Holy Roman Empire. And that is where the feet come in and the toes that are iron still because there's still Rome there and some of the power of Rome but it's mixed with clay meaning other worldly kingdoms so you see this shift from these powerful kingdoms to a powerful church but it's mixed with clay

because there are these other kings that have armies. And in fact, sometimes they stretch that power. We'll see what stopped the power of the papacy in preparation for the restoration. Because what was the other part of the dream? That this weaker mixture of iron and clay. Iron and clay, the toes. Which is that Catholic consortium of countries with lots of different kings there in Western Europe, is broken in preparation for the restoration. Napoleon Bonaparte played a big part in ending that absolute power of the papacy. Napoleon Bonaparte, very impressive and obviously charismatic leader. His men loved him.

So he's got this incredible ability to lead men in battle and be successful. And he invaded Italy in the year 1798. 1798. Now that's after the French Revolution, after the American Revolution, and then after the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte invades Italy and he defeats the papal troops. So he defeats the pope's armies. And he effectively in that year dethrones the pope from that position of great power. He removes his power as an earthly king and he declares the papal lands free. So he's really divesting him of property, which there's power in property, right? And demanded that the Pope renounce all temporal authority. This is Napoleon. Now, the Pope won't do that. He won't go that far.

He loses his lands, his army is defeated. He won't denounce his temporal authority, but it kind of ends anyway because he's imprisoned. He's arrested. In August of 1799, the Pope dies in captivity and papal authority is never restored to previous levels. They don't have an army anymore that can counter or intimidate the kings of Europe. And Napoleon then clears the way for something that happens seven years later when Joseph Smith is born. And then in 1820, just not that many years after that, we have the first vision in the beginning of the Restoration. I just think that if we read and study these things, we get a better understanding of omnipotence and omniscience, that God sees all things as present and that God has all power and he works in the affairs of men to accomplish his purposes

with or without their knowledge. I'm certainly not saying that Napoleon Bonaparte was on a mission from God, but God knows who's going to be where when. And so he can tell his prophets this is going to happen, and that will set the stage for this because he uses, of course, both the righteous choices of his people and he uses unrighteous choices of his people also to accomplish his good. All of this is a testament to omniscience and omnipotence that comes from God and can really increase our understanding and our trust in him. He never gets it wrong. He's not guessing. We see the trajectory. We see the message. We see the testimony and the witnesses of Christ, always of Christ, and of his doings and of who he is.

Lillie, we would pick up on this if we didn't know our history. Babylon, then Persia, then the Greek Empire, then the Roman Empire. That's exactly how it went. I'm looking at section 65 of the Doctrine and Covenants. The wonderful thing is Peter, James, and John came. And so I'm reading verse 2 of section 65. The keys of the kingdom of God are committed unto man on the earth. And from thence shall the gospel roll forth unto the ends of the earth,

as the stone which is cut out of the mountain without hands shall roll forth until it has filled the whole earth. So there's the fulfillment. Peter comes back, restores the keys, and now the stone. And I think maybe our listeners wonder, what does it mean without hands? Well, I think it means without earthly hands. It's going to be something that man didn't do. Joseph Smith didn't have power.

That's right. He wasn't wealthy. He wasn't famous. He certainly had no armies at his command. It was done through the gift and power of God and the Holy Ghost given to a steward on the earth to be the restorer all the time. I remember as a teenager listening to President Hinckley, he said at one point, after centuries of darkness and pain and struggle, the time was ripe for the restoration of the gospel. Ancient prophets had spoken of this long-awaited day. All of the history of the past had pointed to this season. The centuries with all of their suffering and all their hope had come and gone. The almighty judge of the nations, the living God determined that

the times of which the prophets had spoken had arrived. Daniel had foreseen a stone, which was cut out of the mountain without hands and which became a great mountain and filled the earth. He goes on later to say that glorious day dawned in the year 1820 when a boy, earnest and with faith, walked into a grove of trees and lifted his voice in prayer, seeking that wisdom which he felt he so much needed. There came in response a glorious manifestation. The stone was small in the beginning. It was hardly noticeable, but it has grown steadily and is rolling forth to fill the earth. I love the excitement in President Hinckley. God does reveal his secrets to the prophets, and it is exciting when we see that happening and

recognize the hand of the Lord is never halted. It's never halted by the affairs of men. He utilizes it. And we're going to get that information even more here with Nebuchadnezzar. Going back to Daniel, in chapter 3, we have the famous story, infamous story, of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Now, it's interesting that this doesn't involve Daniel, but it is suspected that because of some of the writings that he was out of the capital of the time. What's interesting is here, Nebuchadnezzar has heard this dream given to him again and then interpreted by Daniel. And he knows he's the head of gold. So, you know, what does a narcissist do?

I think I'll make a statue to myself of gold and I'll make people worship it. He doesn't really get the overarching power of God. It's just kind of like, oh, I get to be the gold. I get to be the gold head. Yeah. He makes a statue, which must have been at least 90 feet high. We're given a measurement here, three score and six cubits. And the Statue of Liberty, for reference, is just over 150 feet high.

So it's almost two thirds the size of the Statue of Liberty. Wow. And he erects this in one community, and then he assigns some musicians to play, it mentions what the different instruments are, to play basically his theme song every once in a while. He has his own theme music? When they hear the theme music, then all must bow down and worship the statue, or be burned in the fire. He's already got the consequence in

mind. So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are there, but they won't do it. And as is usual, when some people are favored by royalty, there's a lot of vying for royal favor. So they already have people who don't like them, who are obviously envious of this great revelatory power that they're able to tap into because they worship the true God. So, they point out to the king that, this is in verse 10, they tell the king- You've made this decree and they're not doing it. In verse 12, yeah, they won't do it. Whistle blowers.

Exactly. Well, sometimes whistle blowers are good, but anyway. Snitches get stitches, John. These are stitches. These guys are trying to get him in trouble for sure. So what are you going to do about them, Nebuchadnezzar? So he goes right to them because the king kind of values these men already. And he says in verse 14, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image of me, which I have set up. And then he says, if you're going to be ready to do that, fine. But if not,

you're going to be cast in the midst of a burning, fiery furnace. This is verse 15. And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? Like, you really think anybody can save you from that? And they give such a beautiful answer. It should be remembered by all of us forever. In verse 17, if it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from a burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, verse 18, but if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. We only worship God. We will not worship you. You may be all powerful in this earthly sphere, but this is not the power that we're concerned with. We're concerned with the omnipotence of a God who is good and just and merciful, and

we will only worship him. Talk about pressure. You're facing an immediate fiery death, but no. And as mentioned in the curriculum, in our Come Follow Me curriculum, there's a great conference speech by Elder Dennis Simmons, who was actually our state president for a while in Vegas. And then, yeah, just kind of at the end of his tenure, they're a state president. And then he gave this wonderful speech in April 2004, but if not. And quoting from that speech, Elder Simmons says,

they knew that they could trust God, even if things didn't turn out the way they hoped. That's powerful. They knew that faith is more than mental assent, more than an acknowledgement that God lives. Faith is total trust in Him, in the good times and in the bad times, that that doesn't change who God is or who he can be to us if we choose to have that complete trust. And this is different. It's harder to do than it might sound at first, because we love these stories and we'd like to think that we would try to be the same in our life's choices. But what I find when I work with people, good people, really good people who haven't quite understood this completely yet or been able to

fully embrace this level of trust in God, because sometimes we want to dictate the way our blessings come. We have a good idea of what we think would be beneficial in our lives. Like, I want to get married at this time, or I want to have children at this time, or I want to get this job, or I want to have this illness taken away, or this challenge taken away, or whatever. I want to avoid these hardships. And are those righteous desires? Sure.

I'm not saying they're not righteous desires, but remember when we pray that we're invited to include something along the lines of all these things according to thy will in an acknowledgement that God's will may not be the same as ours and that his is superior to ours. So we can petition for blessings that we think would be good for us or our stewardships, our families, and so on, our loved ones. But there should be that at least internal, if not articulated, acknowledgement that God's ways are better.

Remember, we talked about Isaiah recently. You know, my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor my ways your ways. Mine are higher. They're higher because I do see everything. Not just now, but the end from the beginning. I know how this ends. I know what will really be the best in this situation considering our eternal trajectory. And sometimes that is granting our petitions, and sometimes it is not, because it's better not to, because there's growth or stretching, or it leads to another experience that ultimately is consecrated for our gain. And the Lord knows those things, and we don't. So if we try to get things our way,

and then we don't think God is God because we don't always get things our way, we're missing out on this level of faith as demonstrated by these three amazing men who say, we know he can save us from the furnace, but if he doesn't, that doesn't change a thing in the way we believe in God and will worship only him, because that would be for a higher purpose than perhaps we can see at this point in time. But we know that it is the case because God never fails to do what's best for us. Those three words, but if not, it reminds me of Abinadi. He was not saved from the flames. And yet Abinadi's last words, I'm intrigued by last words in the Book of Mormon, Abinadi's last words were, oh God, receive my soul. And he went through it. He did burn. And the opening paragraph of the manual says,

most likely no one will ever threaten to throw you into a fiery furnace or a den of lions because of your faith in Jesus Christ. But none of us get through this life without a trial of faith. We can all benefit from the example of people like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were taken captive as young men by the mighty Babylonian empire, were surrounded by an unfamiliar culture with different values, and faced great temptations to abandon their beliefs and righteous traditions. So this but if not story, it reminds me of Job too. Will I keep my faith in God even when things don't work out? If God is able to do this, but if he doesn't, I'm still going to love him and be devoted to him. That's right. And trust in his higher purposes. I'm going to trust the outcome like Abinadi must have. Trust that it is a manifestation of his love that he doesn't always give us what we want.

And trust that he has a higher purpose and that all will be restored in the end, again, to know who he is and know that I'm not going to end up on the short end of the stick if I trust God. That is a different level. I love what you read there from the lesson. Always a good reminder, we were another one who did that was Joseph Smith, who gave his life and sealed his testimony with his blood at age 38 with a young family and having already withstood many trials. Hiram, his brother as well. We were recently in Nauvoo. So great to be back after 20 years when we went to the Temple Open House and were there to speak for a conference. But one afternoon, we drove over to Carthage, which is sacred ground as well. And you really feel the spirit of Joseph Smith in Nauvoo and Carthage. And I had forgotten how that felt. But you feel it strongly in those

places. It's such a tender reminder that God does require hard things. Nobody would pray that they could seal their testimony with their blood. Nobody would pray for that. Nobody would pray that they could seal their testimony with their blood. Nobody would pray for that. Nobody would pray that they leave their family at a young age. We don't pray for those things. But as we pray, if we can plumb the depths of our heart, of our soul and mind, and say, am I willing to submit to all things that the Father seeth fit to inflict upon me with the trust that it is ultimately for my gain, that he would not do these things for any other purpose than love, for any other purpose than perfect charity, because he knows and sees everything and knows what my customized curriculum, a

Neil Maxwell phrase, should be for my best outcome. Am I able to trust at that level so that I truly can say, nevertheless, thy will be done, which is the example of Christ. Thy will, not mine. And that is the pattern for each of us to come to that place where we don't just trust when things work out the way we want. We trust when they don't. There's a great essay, if anybody wants to read it, I think it's collected in the book Approaching Zion by Hugh Nibley. But this essay, which he wrote singly first, was called Work We Must, But the Lunch is Free.

But the main message of that essay is that God requires us to do what he has commanded us to do, and that includes the work of this life, and then certainly obedience to his commandments and to our covenants. But sometimes we want to act as though it is our work that brings the blessings. And what Nibley is suggesting is that we should detach those two things, because we don't earn our blessings. The lunch is free. It's because God is good, because he is merciful, because he is generous, unfailingly so. That's where the blessings come, and they come in the time and in the way that the Lord, in his omniscience, knows will best benefit us eternally. I mean, he does make promises, but they are eternal promises that are going to be fulfilled

in the end, not necessarily now. And that's why we see people like Abinadi and Joseph Smith and Job go through very hard things that are certainly not fair, and certainly not the results of their hard work or their obedient lives. But if we can disconnect that, we don't lose our faith as so many sadly do when prayers are not answered. But as we get into these higher levels of faith, the Lord is telling us, trust me. You do the work because that's what I've asked you to do, in keeping your covenants and doing the work of this life, and trust that the blessings will come at the time and in the way that I know will most benefit you.

And it may not look like that to you, but you trust me. That's exactly the message of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And we can become more like these men as we honestly submit our will to his, according to thy will, according to thy way, not my will, but thine. And I love that it's not just Daniel. It's the three of them saying, we are not careful to answer thee. So this example of young men that are so strong in an unfamiliar place with a threat of a very unpleasant death is really inspiring. It's also making me think, man, could I do that? I'm not sure I could do that.

I don't think burning to death would be a fun way to go. But they were prepared. If not, you know, do what you have to do, but we're not going I could do that. I don't think burning to death would be a fun way to go, but they were prepared. If not, you know, do what you have to do, but we're not going to worship your gods. Hank, didn't you do a talk called I Love My Friends or something like a, something that you often hear in testimony meeting about Daniel and his friends? Yeah, because I had heard that so many times from my students. I love my friends, right? I from my students. I love my friends, right? I like my family.

I love my friends. And so I talked a little bit about how important it is to have good friends. And I went to these chapters because you can see we talked about in Daniel 2 that when Daniel had his problem, he went to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah and said, we need to work together on this and desire God. And then you pointed out the pronouns of we are not careful to answer this. It wasn't a, well, I don't know about these two, but I'm not going to do it. Yeah. That's true. That it's important to surround yourself with friends who believe.

It's hard to follow when you're surrounded by friends who believe. So thanks, John. Yeah. Now, the other side of that coin is that as awful as it is to be slain for your beliefs, and we have talked about some great people. Micah Benedict. Yes. And the early Protestant reformers and other good people through the ages who, because of their desire to have integrity and to be honest in their beliefs and true to them, anyway, lots of innocent, good people have been slain as martyrs. We may not be called upon, most of us will not be called

upon to die for our testimonies, but are we living our testimonies day by day and seeking to yield our wills to the will of the Lord and do things in His way, not in our way, when it concerns what seem to be pedestrian things, but are sometimes exactly where that rubber needs to hit the road, like how we wear our garments, or do we pay a full tithing? Do we honor this Sabbath day? Are we honest in all our dealings? Are we kind? Do we harness our tempers to not have the destructive anger and tempers that Christ warns about in the New Testament? Are we living the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Are we strengthening our marriages, our partners in marriage, our husbands or wives? Do they feel our love? Do our children feel safe with us? Are we living the gospel of Jesus Christ? This is where we can get the same demonstration of trust in God that I can overcome my pettiness or my bad temper or my weaknesses or my selfishness in order to demonstrate that I trust that God's blessings are greater than that moment of natural man pleasure that I get from indulging those weaknesses or those bad habits. To add to that, I do these things not because I have some expected blessing.

I have some picture in my head. I remember growing up and over and over in the Book of Mormon, it says, if you keep my commandments, you shall prosper in the land. If you keep my commandments, you shall prosper in the land. And then it finally occurred to me that I was like, I don't think my definition of prosper and his definition of prosper is the same. It was a couple of years before I went, define prosper. The blessing will come in the time and in the way that the Lord knows is best for us,

which is so different from how we're, yeah, I want that candy bar right now. I put my dollar in. I had a definition of prosper in my head that I think the Lord let me have until it hit me in the face that that's not the expectation. That's not His definition. I don't think that word means what you think that word means. Yeah, yeah. I do not think word means what you think that word means. Yeah, yeah. You keep on using that word.

I do not think it means what you think it means. Exactly. And that is building our trust in the Lord. And it is a gradual day-by-day process. It doesn't have to be in extreme moments. Here it is as a great example to us. But it really is in these day-by-day yieldings of our natural man desires in order to do things in God's way. That's how we progress in our lives, and that's what builds the kind of trust that, if required,

would lead to these kinds of sacrifices. But whether or not it's required in this life, it is required that we build that trust in God and that we not try to carve out the blessings that we want and say, if you really love me, Lord, this is what you'll do for me. And this is how it will look and this is when it will happen. And we don't do it because it works. Sometimes it does. We do it because it's right. Please join us for part two of this podcast.