Our lesson is about the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel, who faced immense challenges during their captivity in Babylon. The main takeaway is that instead of whining about their circumstances, both men chose to be diligent workers and faithful witnesses, showcasing how we can navigate our own difficult times. We explore how their responses to adversity can teach us valuable lessons about trust, perseverance, and remaining focused on our calling, even when life throws us curveballs. Yvon Prehn emphasizes that our primary task is not to get lost in the complexities of prophecy but to live out the commands to love God and love people in the here and now. Join us as we uncover the modern messages woven through their ancient stories, reminding us that even in challenging times, we have the power to shine brightly and fulfill our purpose.

Takeaways:

• The Bible provides profound insights into finding meaning, love, and peace in our lives, emphasizing its role as a guide for forgiveness and salvation.
• Ezekiel and Daniel serve as examples of faithfulness during difficult times, illustrating how to avoid whining and instead become witnesses and workers.
• God's sovereignty is a central theme; we are called to focus on our current responsibilities rather than attempting to predict the future.
• Our response to challenges can define our faith; Daniel and Ezekiel's lives show us how to remain steadfast and serve God in all circumstances.

Links referenced in this episode:

• bible805.com

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For an almost exact copy of the text, go to the www.Bible805.com site for downloadable NOTES or to the www.Bible805Academy.com for downloadable and editable Notes, Discussion Guide, Audio and Video files, plus the original PowerPoints—for your personal study or all you need to teach the lesson.

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Hi, I'm Yvon Prehn from Bible 805 and I truly believe the Bible has everything you need to find meaning and purpose, love and peace in this life, and it is a source for forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation.

In this podcast through longer lessons and shorter challenges, I want to tell you about it by making sometimes complex bio Bible topics understandable. So let's do that today with our podcast topic, which is from our series Ancient Prophets, Modern Messages.

Today we're talking about the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel. Whiner, worker, witness or Wonder.

Now here's what to expect in this lesson.

Ezekiel and Daniel are two of the most discussed, dissected and debated about prophets.

They are a favorite of prophecy buffs who spend tremendous amounts of time attempting to find the exact analogies today of the images in them and the timeline of the events, piecing together a very complicated prophecy puzzle. Now, if that's what you were expecting, I'm sorry, that is not the approach I'm going to take.

In our next lesson on Haggai and Zachariah, I have an extended discussion on prophetic images. Just a little teaser on that.

Be sure to check that out because it's going to be really interesting and the challenge of extracting current meanings from them. But in this and it's certainly no judgment of anyone who's into the more traditional prophecy studies, that's just great. I encourage you to do it.

But again, that's not what we're going to do. What our focus is to be about.

And it seems to be and again, I do not want to judge anyone who the Lord's told them to pursue a certain line of study that Jesus was really clear when we look at prophecy end time things about how we're supposed to deal with him. And he talks about it in two places.

And then he goes on though, to say, who then is the faithful and wise servant whom the Master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose Master finds him doing so when he returns.

Just a personal note here, that is one of my life's key ministry verses. I want to be that wise servant who gives food to his fellow servants. And that's what I hope that I'm doing with you.

So I hope this is more than just a tasty snack, but something that will really feed your soul.

And then going on in another passage, when they were together for the last time, the disciples asked, master, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? This was after his crucifixion, death, resurrection, the 40 days of teaching with them, and they're still asking the same questions.

Jesus must have just thought, oh my goodness. But he told them, you don't get to know the time. Timing is a father's business. What you'll get is the Holy Spirit.

And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world. Our focus is not to be about date setting or trying to figure out what's impossible to know.

We are to be about faithfully doing the work he's given us to do, caring for those he's given us to care for, sharing the good news however we can. In summary, being his witness now in the assurance of our eternal future with Him. So we know from everything the Bible teaches us that we win.

But now is the time to get to work. Now, some of the modern messages we've clearly seen repeated again and again in the prophets.

Israel entered into a covenant relationship with God when he delivered them from Egypt, and they promised to do all he commanded. At that time, though his commands were many. Two foundational ones were to love God and love people.

Loving God involved worshiping and serving him only. Loving people involved caring for the poor, widows, orphans and aliens and all that involved in maintaining a just and fair society.

An application reminder, our command is to do the same. Don't get so distracted with your prophecy puzzles that you ignore obvious contemporary command on serving God and serving the least of these.

The prophets as covenant enforcement communicators were sent to the people for hundreds of years to remind them of what they promised and what God also promised.

If they did not repent of their disobedience, and because they didn't do as they promised to do, after repeated warnings, time has finally run out for Judah.

After hundreds of years of warning challenges, watching what happened to the northern kingdom when they were conquered by Assyria, and the warnings of many prophets, it's over. Babylon has arisen in power and conquers the entire area from Assyria to Egypt as part of an early deportation.

When Babylon first exerted control over Judah, Daniel and Ezekiel were taken to Babylon. It must have seemed horrible. Yet they were deported to Babylon in really a relatively peaceful way.

They were kept from the later horrors of the Final siege of the city, the total destruction of Jerusalem, and the more harsh final treatment. Daniel and his three friends were taken to the palace. Ezekiel was relocated with the captive people near the river.

This lesson is on how God greatly used them both in the midst of unimaginable challenges. We'll see how Daniel and Ezekiel didn't whine.

They faithfully worked their lives, became a witness, and then the wonder of God was revealed to and through them. This lesson will show you how this happened in their lives and uncover the modern messages for us in it.

We may not be taken captive to a foreign land, but we all have challenging times and we always have options as to how we respond. The setting overall for both men in Babylon, the policy of Babylon was somewhat different than other conquerors who primarily killed and resettled.

Now, remember what happened with Assyria and Samaria, how they just took all of the people away, how they were such a terribly cruel and vicious conquering army. But instead, Babylon intentionally took as captives the leaders and potential young leaders of a nation. They removed them to Babylon.

They trained them and gave them positions of trust and honor. This removed the chance of rebellion from talented potential leaders and increased the strength of the Babylonian empire.

The policy turned captives into skilled civil servants instead of rebellious slaves. Application. If you're the winner in any situation, always be gracious and welcoming and inclusive. Everyone benefits when we treat people like this.

Now, the system worked really well for them. The common people were settled in places where they had their own homes, their gardens.

And as we can see in later years, they prospered and they did well financially. So much so that when the chance came for them to return to their homeland after the 70 years of captivity, many preferred to stay in Babylon.

You don't know, it's really comfortable here. You want to go back and have to rebuild this city? I mean, really.

They decided they wanted to stay, at least for a time until the threatened extinction of the Jews during the time of Esther. Changed a few opinions on that. And then we have a later return under Ezra.

But many of them were so wealthy, though, during the first return, that they were able to give generously to the rebuilding of the temple. Application. You never know how God will work at the start of a seeming disaster. And that's what this lesson I hope will go on to illustrate.

Now let's look at a focus on two of the captives that we've already mentioned, Daniel and Ezekiel. The Babylonian system sounds interesting, but how did it work out for real people?

We're going to look at four ways of responding for Daniel and Ezekiel, how they might have responded and then what they did, and of course what we can learn from them. When any difficulty comes, our options of responding are that we can become either a whiner, a worker, a witness, or a wonder.

Now, first of all, let's talk about whining. It's the most common and natural response to any trouble. Whine me. Now here are some false assumptions we might make when bad things happen.

God hates me. God's punishment me. This is a disaster. This is horrible. I don't deserve this. All of these are most likely wrong.

Because even if we are being disciplined for a sin, as the entire nation of Judah was, God always has our best in mind and he's in control. He never lashes out on you just because he hates you and wants to beat up on you. He does not do that.

And he often not only makes a situation tolerable, God can make it better than we can ever imagine. Whining makes us look petty and is a bad reflection on the God we claim to serve and trust and our stated faith in Him.

We can say all kinds of things about loving and trusting God, but if the least little bad thing happens and we start whining, that will destroy literally any witness that we have. A modern day example of this of someone who didn't whine is we heard from her a number of years ago at the Global Leadership Summit.

One of the speaker features that year was Jamie Kern Lima.

She was a woman who started out as a waitress at Denny's, worked hard, went to college, got her dream job as a local news anchor, and then she developed rosacea, a skin condition that would cause her face to break out in big red blotches. She lost her job as a news anchor. They told her she just didn't look the part anymore, but she didn't whine. She trusted Jesus.

She was a believer and she believed God wanted her to do something in that situation. So she started a cosmetic line for people like her who had rosacea.

After many years, hundred hour work weeks, huge challenges, and when she got down to having only $1,000 in the bank, that was total for her personally and as a business. After years of rejection, she was finally able to go on the QVC channel. She had 10 minutes to sell 6,000 items.

She went on with a bare face, rosacea and all, and then she showed them how the makeup worked. She sold the 16,000 items. She went on to develop a company that sold for $1.2 billion to L'. Oreal. She's now a philanthropist and an author.

Here's what she said at the Global Leadership Summit. Rejection is God's protection. You weren't rejected. God says, I hid your value from that person.

Or we could put in their situation company, whatever it might have been, they weren't assigned to your destiny. There's so much wisdom for us here.

We may be rejected by people, situations, organizations, timing, many things that God will not allow us to move forward into or give us. And yet God can take what seems like a tragic loss at the time and use it later in a great way.

How did Ezekiel and Daniel respond when taken captives as young men to a foreign nation? Instead of whining, they submitted to their situation. We don't ever see them whining or complaining or refusing to do what God asked them to do.

They quietly waited, as Habakkuk did. By their actions, they showed they believed in the sovereignty of God and they lived out this verse, do everything without grumbling or arguing.

So you may become blameless and pure children of God without fault, in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky.

We might ask, but don't I have a right to grumble when I'm unfairly treated, or tired or grumpy, or I just don't feel like it, or nobody else has to suffer like I do? And on and on and on. No, Everything in this verse, just like take everything to God in prayer. You know all of those words that mean everything.

Here it still means everything. It says do everything without grumbling. Grumbling is never okay.

If we want to represent our God Number two with hope and trust in God, they can then work. There's always something to do, something positive, something God ordained. No matter what is going on, there's always work to be done.

No matter what the situation or location. Whenever God calls you, whatever he wants you to do you, his calling on your life is never cancelled. If you're alive, you've got work to do.

To strengthen yourself, tell yourself that the God of eternal purposes put you where you are. As C.S. Lewis reminds us, this is a very thought provoking quote. Listen to this.

If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they've become so ineffective in this. So think of the next world.

You see, this is what the prophets want us to do. They want us to see the bigger picture. But don't lose sight of where God's put you now, but know that the work you do now will never be in vain.

And work hard. This one now, the work ethic of Daniel and his friends. They became civil servants, and they became the best at their jobs.

It began early in their captivity, when they were first in training. They were offered the king's food, which was part of their training, but against their Jewish dietary laws. And how did they respond?

They didn't act offended or insulted. Daniel asked politely and for a test. He said, please test your servants for 10 days. Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink.

Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food and treat your servants in accordance with what you see. So we agreed to this and tested them for 10 days. And the result?

At the end of the 10 days, they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables instead.

To these four young men, God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds.

At the end of the time set by the king to bring them into his service, the chief official presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. The king talked with them, and he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishahel, and Azariah.

So they entered the king's service in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them. He found them 10 times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom. Application.

Their talents were God given, but they had to apply what they've been given. They had to be faithful in it. And more about them in a minute. But now let's look at Ezekiel.

Ezekiel was taken to Babylon, but his work was very different. Daniel was placed at the palace, Ezekiel among the people, and he was of a priestly family.

When he was taken to Babylon, he had a change in location, but not in work, not in his calling. He was no longer serving comfortably in the temple in Jerusalem, but he was still called to be a priest, an intermediator between God and man.

God decides how our calling will work out. He did that for Ezekiel, and he does that for us.

He was called to a special prophetic ministry at age 30, when he has an extraordinary vision of the glory of God. I'm going to show you some images of that a little bit later. And God said to him, at that time, son of man, I'm sending you to the Israelites.

The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them this is what the sovereign Lord says.

And whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are a rebellious people, they will know that a prophet has been among them. Now, it's not the most encouraging start, and it's a reminder that success is never the measure of our calling.

I have a little note here to tell you the story, just extraordinarily briefly, of D.L. Moody, more so though, of his Sunday school teach. D.L. Moody only finished the fifth grade. He moves to Chicago.

He's living, I believe it's with his uncle. He gets a, he needs a job and his uncle hires him to work in his shoe store. But one of the conditions of the work is he had to go to church.

And so he starts going to this church not terribly excited about it. He has a Sunday school teacher. One day his Sunday school teacher decides to visit him at his place of work. He's downstairs working in the store area.

And during that exchange, D.L. Moody becomes a believer in Jesus.

Now, his Sunday school teacher didn't go after him because he was this great important thing and, and oh, he could just really see God using him for the kingdom of God. No, he just had a heart for this young man to come to know Jesus. This was just before the Civil War started.

And God went on to use DL Moody in absolutely extraordinary ways untold. Probably millions of people came to know the Lord from his preaching and his teaching.

He started schools and he worked a lot with the poor, with children. One of the things that people don't realize is he was a very early promoter of theological education and public preaching for women.

In fact, little known fact here, before he started the Moody Bible Institute, he actually set up a seminary for women. And I could go on and on and on. He is one of the true heroes of the faith.

But the point is, a man in a little church in Chicago many years ago taught a small Sunday school and he was faithful in what he did there. And he had no idea how God was going to use one of his students. As a result, number three of no whining and working well at their jobs.

And they became a witness. People came to them. If your faithful situations will come up, people know that you know God. Be open to questions and people asking you about God.

You don't have to lay out every fact of your faith in one conversation, but pray for opportunities.

Think about possible topics of conversation, invite people to faith based events, bring friends to Church Bible study, church social events, Christian movies, anything like that. Let's look though now at how being a witness worked out in their lives. First, to Daniel and his friends.

They started out honored best at their work, but things didn't go as well as they might have hoped. In Daniel 2, King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that terrifies him.

He calls in his astrologers to tell him the meaning of it, but he wants to make sure they aren't just making something up. So he tells them they must first tell him the dream itself. They protest, saying that's impossible. And the king orders all of them killed.

Daniel, once again, very politely responds. Daniel went in to see the king. Give me a little time, he said, and I'll tell you the dream and what it means.

Then he went home and told Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, his companions. They asked the God of heaven to show them his mercy by telling them the secret so they wouldn't die with the others.

And that night, in a vision, God told Daniel what the king had dreamed.

Daniel has the opportunity to tell the king not only the content, but the meaning of his dream of four future kingdoms in near future history, and also culminating with the eternal reign of the coming Messiah. And the same message will be delivered in chapter seven. And yes, there's so much more we could say about it, but we must move on.

And by the way, it really didn't seem to be that big of a deal then, because it wasn't mentioned by any of the main characters. But life goes on. And then it's his friend's turn to be a witness.

After praising God for this great revelation, power goes to Nebuchadnezzar's head, and he wants to be worshiped. He builds a huge statue and requires everyone to bow down to him or face instant death in the fiery furnace. Daniel's friends, they don't bow down.

And here's what they say. Daniel 3, 17 and 18.

It says, if we're thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from your majesty's hands.

But even if he does not, we want you to know, your majesty, we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold that you've set up, even if he does not. That is the statement of faith and trust. That ought to be the unspoken attitude of all our prayers.

God may or may not do as we wish and pray, but he's still God. And in no one else can we put Our hope and trust. God did rescue them. But he also did one more extraordinary thing. They were not alone in the fire.

He Nebuchadnezzar said, look, I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed. And the fourth looks like a son of the gods. This is what is known as a theophany. It's a pre incarnate appearance of the second person of the Trinity.

In this case, of course, it's Jesus.

And if you want to know more about theophanies and how they occurred in the Old Testament, please see my lesson on the Trinity in the Old Testament that's available for you on the Bible 805 site. Remember, Jesus promised to be with us always. And that means that in the midst of trials he is there. Most of the time he is invisible to us.

Sometimes people get special revelations of that, but most of the time we can't see him. But he is always there. After this, Nebuchadnezzar doesn't change much and he has a troubling dream. As before, Daniel interprets and warns him.

This time of great personal judgment, God strikes Nebuchadnezzar down and he lives like an animal. But then he's restored to sanity when he humbled himself before God. And then he writes about it in Daniel 4. It says King Nebuchadnezzar.

He's referring to himself, to the nations and peoples of every language who live on all the earth. May you prosper greatly. It's my pleasure to tell you about the miraculous signs and wonders that the most high God has performed for me.

How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders. His kingdom is an eternal kingdom. His dominion endures from generation to generation. Read the whole chapter when you get a chance.

It's truly exciting how it went to the entire known world at the time. From the most powerful man in the world.

This huge and wonderful and complete detailed testimony of literally how he found God after God so really astoundingly judged him. Many have referred to this as the first gospel tract, and it really was. Perhaps that's the reason that God allowed the short lived power of Babylon.

They were only a power for 80 years. Maybe it was for this message to be shared. What an extraordinarily inventive God we serve now.

Daniel continues to be faithful, keeps doing the work he was called to do. But his successor, Belteshazzar, does not follow him in serving God. He holds a drunken party drinking from the vessels taken from the temple.

A hand appears and writes on the wall. He panics. Daniel is called in who interprets the writing. This is the inscription that was written. Mini, mini Tekkel Parson.

Here's what these words meaning. God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. Tikal, you've been weighed in the scales and found wanting.

Perez, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. That night, Babylon falls and Belteshazzar dies. Sometimes there's no time to repent.

Now another huge political upheaval takes place after the fall of the Babylonian empire and under the next ruler, Cyrus, the Jews are allowed to return to the land, and Daniel continues to serve. Life goes on. The new king comes in and Daniel is once again part of the government. And it says in Daniel 6.

It pleased Darius, who followed Cyrus, to appoint 120 satraps. These were rulers over groups of people to rule throughout the kingdom, with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel.

The satraps were made accountable to them so that the king might not suffer loss.

Now, Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.

At this, the administrators and satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent.

Finally, these men said, we will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God. They come up with a way to trap Daniel by saying, no one could pray to any God other than the king, which, of course, Daniel does.

And the result, as we know, is Daniel is thrown into the lion's den. Here's an application to us about when and how this happened.

Daniel at this time was an old man, at least 80 years old, and one would think he'd had enough. But no retirement, no ceasing of tests for God people, no excuses for old age, and no cancellation of our calling in the lion's den.

It says, at the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lion's den.

When he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice, daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom you serve continually been able to rescue you from the lions? Daniel answered, may the king live forever. My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions.

They've not hurt me because I was found innocent in his sight. Nor have I done any wrong before you. Your Majesty, the King was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den.

And when Daniel was lifted up from the den, no wound was found on him because he trusted in his God. The book now shifts from the witness of his life to the wonder of more revelations. But first let's go back and see what was happening with Ezekiel.

Ezekiel as a witness, he was called to be a watchman. And this passage is repeated twice in chapters three and 33, where it says, son of man, I made you a watchman for the people of Israel.

So hear the word I speak and give them a warning for me when I say to the wicked, you wicked person, you will surely die. And you do not speak out to dissuade them from their ways. That wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood.

But if you do warn the wicked person to turn from their ways and they do not do so, they will die for their sin, though you yourself will be saved. The job of the watchman is incredibly important, then and now.

And we need to pray for the watchmen in our lives, the pastors, the teachers, and anyone sharing God's word that the Christian message will be clear and of the importance of personal salvation to everyone. That's the job of the watchman. And what a watchman he was.

The situation the people in Babylon were in captivity because of their sins, but they didn't accept it. They kept asking for deliverance from their situation and that Jerusalem be spared.

Ezekiel is called to remind them of the sins that brought them where they are now. Some of the messages are kind of gross, but he did this in a variety of ways. He was an extremely effective communicator.

Many living sermon illustrations are acted out in his life. He acted out the siege. He ate famine food. He didn't speak, he preached, he counseled. He answered questions, all very calmly and confidently.

And his life was also a message, as when his wife died. He was told one day, he said, God said to him, going to take the joy of your life from you. And the next day or so, his wife just died unexpectedly.

But God told him, you must not mourn. You must get up and preach as before.

And this illustrated in his life a picture of how the joy of the people, the temple, would be destroyed, and they couldn't do a thing about it. God used his life to teach lessons, and God continues to do that with others, as the Bible reminds us.

In 2nd Corinthians 1:3, it says, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with a comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.

We've seen how God used Job, Hosea and others as living illustrations, and we're reminded once again that he may use us in similar ways. It may not be in the cosmic or nation challenging ways of Job and Hosea, but people around you are observing your life.

Pray that whatever is given you that you will represent your God well. Finally, the wonder Based on their life of faithful witness, both were given glorious visions.

The visions would not have come if they had not been faithful in not whining, in working, in witnessing. And now both Ezekiel and Daniel are given glorious visions from God.

Daniels have already been mentioned of the succeeding kingdoms of the earth and the ultimate kingdom of the Messiah. Ezekiel was given a number of really wild visions throughout the book. These spinning wheels and corpses coming to life.

And what I'm now going to be doing for the video is showing you some illustrations, how artists have pictures these throughout the years. If you're just listening to the podcast, do check it out on YouTube.

Ezekiel finally though, sees the vision, the wonder of the renewed eternal temple and the water flowing from it. Are the descriptions of the temple or really any of the other visions literal or allegorical? We don't really have a definite answer.

An earthly analogy to this though might be that no description that anyone can tell you prepares you what the Grand Canyon actually looks like until you're there. It is just so astounding when you actually see it in person. And I imagine much of heaven and the final events on planet Earth will be like that.

We might think we know now, but the reality will be so much more than we can imagine, regardless of our understanding or not. He prophesied a glorious future and the book ends with this and the name of the city from that time on will be the Lord is there.

Being with Jesus is a most wonderful thing and that we can know for certain. No interpretation of his promise to be with us always is needed and we want to live daily with that coming reality in mind. Finally, back to Daniel.

He lived through the entire story of captivity and return. He saw all that had been prophesied come true, from deportation to the return to the land.

His prophecies are about the near future of his people, that they're fairly easy to understand. Of Alexander and his four generals, his future prophecies of the coming of Jesus and then into the far future. Not so easy.

There are lots of interpretations, as we said in the introduction, but getting the timelines and interpretations of them exactly correct is not the primary thing we need to learn. The overall message is that God is in control, now and forever.

A final word though to us, our modern message, Daniel 12:3 says those who are wise shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness like the stars, forever and ever.

Wise is the Hebrew word sakal, a word comprising those who know God's word, live according to it, and what makes them wise is that they lead many to righteousness. That's what their lives are focused on. They're not into affluence and toys and distractions and all that. They want people to come to know Jesus.

They're not being a whiner, but being a worker and a witness wherever you are, seeing and reflecting the wonder of serving God and fulfilling Jesus Final Command in Acts 1:8 be encouraged by his promise to many of you who I know are wise. As you study His Word, work to live by it, and through your lives and prayers, your witness and work will lead many to righteousness.

Keep in mind, be encouraged and strengthened by this promise. You will shine like the stars forever and ever. That's all for now.

Please check out the show notes, a complete downloadable transcript, graphics mention and related materials at www.bible805.com. Until next time. Hello, I'm Yvonne Prynne, your fellow pilgrim, writer and teacher for Jesus, and I'd like to close with this benediction.

May you know the invitation of God to move from confusion to clarity, from wandering to rest, from loneliness to knowing you are loved, from turmoil to peace, from wherever you are in your spiritual journey to a growing knowledge of God's Word and in your personal relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.