Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
2 Timothy 2:15 NKJV

Introduction

Last year I felt the Spirit calling me to both study and share prophecy, so I embarked on Season 6 with the idea that the theme would be prophecy. For the past couple years, however, I've been struggling with being consistent on the podcast—something I've talked about a few times. To be honest I'm disappointed with how few episodes I've created compared to what is in my mind. Unlike previous years where I gave up on the topic (see Season 4) and simply moved on to the next topic, we will finish Season 6. We're also going to bring back the theme from Season 4 (Literary Devices), because some of that information is crucial for understanding prophecy.

How I Study Prophecy

In this episode I want to give you a preview of how I study the Word. While I was sorting through what direction I should go in, I started studying Daniel and got really deep in to Daniel 9. We're not going to actually do the study for Daniel 9 today because I think we need to work through other passages in Daniel first, but I do want to use it as an example.

Two Testimonies

I actually have two testimonies that came out of studying just 4 verses (Daniel 9:24-27).

Seeing Humbleness in a Mega-Pastor

As I was studying this passage, I thoroughly confused myself. In the section below, I'm going to talk about a method of studying I learned from a particular pastor and it is this pastor I reached out to after I confused myself. For context this pastor has almost 54,000 subscribers on his personal YouTube channel and about 5,400 subscribers on his church's YouTube channel. He is one of the most viewed pastors for his denomination and while I hesitate to call him a celebrity I don't know anyone from that denomination who does not know who he is. When I reached out to his church to ask my question, I expected either an email response from an elder, a generic link to a sermon where he has already discussed the topic, or honestly, no response at all. Instead I received a personal phone call where he went over the passage with me and helped me work through some of the questions I had.

I'm sharing this with you because it touched me deeply to see someone care that much about sharing the gospel. We're talking about a man who probably receives questions like this by the thousands every week. We're talking about a man who has a family—a wife, kids, and grandkids. We're talking about a man who has speaking engagements, sermons, and Bible studies to prepare for. Yet, he still found time to answer my question. This is the spirit I imagine in Messiah. If you think back to Matthew 14, in particular Matthew 14:14-21, we see Messiah and the disciples spending the whole day healing people and that end of the day when they were all tired, there's still this multitude of people. The disciples want to send the people away, but Messiah says to let them stay. They don't have a lot of food (or energy) to give but they do anyway. This is the spirit of pouring out to the people that Messiah fulfilled and taught. I saw that in this pastor when he made time to answer my question. This is the spirit that works through us to bring people closer to the Most High! It is when we see the Holy Spirit actively moving in someone else they we feel convicted to grow our relationship with the Most High. I felt my reaction drive me to want to be more patient, to want to interact more with others who have questions, to want to be better at being able to answer questions, etc.

Dreams and Visions

Below you'll see a series of questions I asked while I was studying this passage. I wrote this list out right before I went to bed and when I said my prayers I prayed over the questions. The dream I had that night was something of a recurring dream, which of course made me pay even more attention to when I woke up. I often dream that I'm at home, but the house I live in has these areas that are unexplored—rooms and floors that I either don't know exist or have forgotten they exist. That night I dreamed my mom was visiting, which triggered the memory of a particular section in the house and I was taking her to a room in that section. This section of the house I took my mom to was pretty fancy and contained a massive library (think Beauty and the Beast style library). When I woke up my first thought was the passage in which Messiah says there are many mansions in His Father's house and He is going to prepare a place for us (John 14). Naturally, I read that chapter. There was alot that spoke to me personally, but there are also specific verses in that passage that answer some of the questions I had asked the night before. Isn't that something?

A Series of Questions

A while back I attended a seminar/study on a Bible study method called Phototheology developed by Pastor Ivor Myers. I love this method of studying the Word and found that many of the principles he discusses I was already employing subconsciously. One such method is know as the "questions room" in which you interrogate the text by asking as many questions as you can. You may already know (or think you know the answer to some questions), but a lot of times once you start asking questions you start to see the things you don't know or you start to realize there is actually ambiguity in what you thought you knew. We have a tendancy to take our pastor or other trusted person's word when they tell us how something should be interpreted, but if we dig in to the text we might find their interpretation lacking... I use this method with most studies I do, especially when it comes to prophecy. Below are some of the questions I came up with while reading Daniel 9:24-27.

1. Who is your people?
2. What is your holy city?
3. What is the transgression?
4. How were they to finish the transgression?
5. What is meant by make an end of sins?
   1. How is that possible?
   2. Can a person stop sinning?
6. How are we reconciled to the Most High?
7. Why does the vision and prophecy need to be sealed?
   1. If the 70 weeks are meant to be the end of the world when judgment happens why are scrolls already sealed in Revelation?
   2. Why would we need seal up information after it takes place?
   3. What word is translated to seal and what does it mean?
8. What does it mean to anoint the Most Holy?
9. How is the Most Holy anointed?
10. What is the command to restore and build Jerusalem
    1. 4 commands are given in the Bible, how do we know which is the right command?
    2. What instructions or provisions should we look for to be included in the command?
11. Why are the 7 weeks broken up from the 62 weeks?
    1. What happens after the 7 weeks?
    2. Why aren’t we given more information about the 7 weeks?
    3. Are the wall and street to be completed at the end of the 7 weeks?
12. Do the troublesome times make up the whole 69 weeks?
13. Why are the times troublesome?
14. Are the times only troublesome for Israel or for the world?
15. Does Messiah come at the beginning of the 69th week or after its completion?
16. Does “after the 62 weeks” refer to the 7 + 62, making it 69 weeks?
17. Does after mean at the completion of (i.e. at the start of the 70th week or 63rd if the answer to question 16 is no)
18. What does it mean to be cut off?
19. Why is Messiah cut off?
20. Who or what is He cut off from?
21. How is He cut off?
22. How does Messiah being cut off relate to Isaiah 53?
23. If He is not cut off for Himself, who is He cut off for?
    1. How do the people He is cut off for feel about it?
    2. Do they try to stop Him from being cut off?
    3. Does this have anything to do with the reconciliation of verse 24?
    4. Does this have anything to do with the anointing of the Most Holy in verse 24?
24. Who is the prince who is to come?
    1. Is the prince Messiah?
    2. Is the prince antichrist?
    3. Why is he coming?
    4. When is he coming?
    5. Where will he come to?
25. Who are the prince’s people?
    1. Are they followers, supporters, and disciples?
    2. Are they simply people of the same nation, culture, and background?
    3. Are they worshippers?
26. Why do they destroy the city and the sanctuary?
27. How do they destroy these things?
    1. By war?
    2. By defiling?
28. The end of what?
    1. Destruction of the city?
    2. Messiah being cut off?
    3. The people of the prince?
    4. The prince?
29. What war is being spoken of?
    1. National wars?
    2. Spiritual war?
30. What are the desolations that are determined?
31. Who determined there would be desolations?
32. Why is there desolation?
33. Who does the desolation effect?
34. Who is the he in verse 27?
35. What covenant is he confirming?
36. How does he confirm the covenant?
37. Who are the many that he confirms the covenant with?
38. Does the covenant only apply to the many?
39. Why isn’t the covenant confirmed with all?
40. Are the many from the same nation?
41. Does gender or religious identity matter in who are part of the many?
42. Why does he end the sacrifice in the middle of the week?
43. Was the sacrifice related to the covenant?
44. Does the covenant expire at the end of the week?
45. What happens at the end of the covenant?
46. Is the end of this week the end of the war?
47. Is the covenant related to the war of verse 26 or something else?
48. How does he bring an end to the sacrifices?
49. Is the end of the sacrifices only for those with whom the covenant is confirmed or everyone?
50. What are the “wings of abominations”?
51. Is ”the one who makes desolate” the cause of abominations? or the judger of abominations?
    1. Why are they making things desolate.
52. Is “the one who makes desolate” different than the he references previously?
53. Is this the desolation promised in verse 26?
54. What is being consummated?
    1. Is this a reference to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb?
55. What is poured out on the desolate?
56. Who are the desolate?
57. What was determined?
58. When was it determined?
59. Who determined it?
60. Why was it determined?

A Roadmap

I think part of the problem is that I started in the wrong place. I started in Revelation, with the idea that I would go through Revelation first the back peddle to Daniel and other references. However, there are a few problems I'm running in to currently as I try to proceed:

1. I really want to talk about how Christian Nationalism fits in since it's a major player in the upcoming election in the US, but I need to go through tons of information in both Daniel and Revelation to substantiate this discussion.
2. I couldn't find the same amount of information for every church mentioned in the 7 Churches of Asia Minor, but I wanted to do a whole episode on each and so I started spinning my wheels and got stuck in limbo.
3. Revelation is one of the first books of the Bible I read and studied on my own. I have been studying both Revelation and Daniel in conjunction with history since I was a teenager (~20 years). Not only is it a lot of information that I'm trying to make concise and sort through when I'm not the best with organization, but I still learn new things when I read the chapters!

Because of this, I want to set a plan with specific chapters/content and release dates that I can hold myself to. I'm hoping that providing structure will enable me to be more successful

You'll notice that I'm not going to keep struggling through the 7 Churches. I fully intend to finish talking about them, but doing them sequentially is just not working. In the mean time, I've finished a study on all 7 churches if you want to read about them now.

Topic	Verses	Sumamry Preview	Release Date
Setting the Stage	Daniel 1 & 6	Daniel makes major prophecies concerning end time prophecy and history in general. Before we can dive into those prophecies we need establish who Daniel (and his friends) were, why they we in Babylon, they're relationship to God and the kings of Israel's captors. This episode will be setting the stage and providing context for many future episodes.	September 4, 2024
The Statue of History (Pt. 1)	Daniel 2	Daniel interprets a dream that Nebuchadnezzar has of a statue made of various materials. This statue fortells the coming empires that rule over God's people. There's a lot of history to cover here, but also alot of beauty in seeing how exact this prophecy is to what actually happened in life. These kingdoms are going to come up over and over in Daniel and Revelation, so we need to set this foundation early on.	September 7, 2024
The Statue of History (Pt. 2)	Daniel 3	After Daniel gives a clear message about what's going to happen, Nebuchadnezzar basically says "nah, my empire is forever." There's a spiritual lesson in his actions but there's also a spiritual lesson in the actions of Daniel's friends who refuse to bow to Nebuchadnezzar's warped reality. While we're talking about the statue from his dream we might as well talk about these spiritual lessons too.	September 10, 2024
From Babylon to Persia	Daniel 4 & 5	We get to see the fulfillment of the Babylon falling to another empire. In this fulfillment are a lot of lesson but we'll stick to history, the fulfilling of prophecy, and reaffirming how on the nose Daniel's prophecies are.	September 13, 2024
The Four Beasts	Daniel 7 & Revelation 13	Daniel 7 is a bit of a callback to Daniel 2, except this time we're going to learn more about how these coming empires relate to end time prophecy. Interestingly, the beasts mentioned in Daniel 7 are repeated in reverse order in Revelation 13. So we're going to study these passages side by side.	September 16, 2024
The 2300 Days Prophecy	Daniel 8	In Daniel 8, Daniel has a vision that Gabriel says lasts for 2300 days—its one of the longest time prophecies given. There's alot to discuss here and alot of different interpretations concerning it. We might have to break this episode in to two parts.	September 19, 2024
The 70 Weeks Prophecy	Daniel 9	As mentioned in this episode, this prophecy is major game changer in how you interpret prophecy and points us to when Messiah will appear. This is another one that might take multiple episodes to get through.	September 21, 2024
The Kings of the North and South	Daniel 11	Daniel 11 covers alot of history. I have a 10 page spread in one of my journals from studying this chapter a couple years ago. We're talking alot of history and prophecy crammed in to 45 verses. I don't know how many episodes this will take, but unless you want a 4 hour podcast, count on a couple episodes coming from this chapter.	September 24, 2024
The Time of Trouble (Pt. 1)	Daniel 10 & 12	Daniel 10 takes us to the Throne of God and Daniel 12 tells us about a time of trouble. Both chapters talk about the mysterious archangel Michael—another contraversial subject amoung denominations. I think we need to split this episode into one episode on the actual time of trouble and one on Michael. We'll talk about who Michael is first.	September 27, 2024
The Time of Trouble (Pt. 2)	Daniel 10 & 12	In this second part we'll talk about the actual time of trouble. I suspect we'll be pulling in verses from Revelation and Matthew as well.	September 30, 2024
Books & Scrolls of the Prophets	Revelation 5 & 10	There are a lot of books (or scrolls) that pop up in Revelation, as well as a common theme of people sealing, unsealing, and/or eating said book. We're going to talk about these books in this episode and trying to answer the when and whys of the actions surrounding the books and the information contained within them.	October 3, 2024
The Temple and the Two Witnesses (Pt. 1)	Revelation 11:1-15	We get a preview of the Temple in Heaven and also some information about two very important witnesses. I've heard a lot about who people think these witnesses are and there's some pretty significant infortmation surrounding the Temple when you compare this description to the descriptions of the Temple in the Old Testament. In part 1 we'll discuss the Temple and how it relates to prophecy, so expect to go back into the Old Testament for this one.	October 5, 2024
The Temple and the Two Witnesses (Pt. 2)	Revelation 11:1-15	Part 2 of this episode will focus on the two witnesses. We'll look at the different theories Bible scholars have proposed and search the scriptures for clues as to which interpretation is correct (if any).	October 8, 2024
The Dragon	Revelation 12	Revelation 12 focus on a couple crucial characters, namely Satan, a woman who hides in the wilderness, and the mysterious Michael we'll have already discussed. This passage is about the war in heaven that is now taking place on Earth. Arguably one of my favorite passages in terms of putting things in to perspective.	October 11, 2024
The Beast From the Sea & the Whore of Bablyon	Revelation 13 & Revelation 17	We'll have touched on this a bit from back when we talked about Daniel 7. This time however, we're also going to bring in information about Revelation 17 which describes a woman, known as the Whore of Babylon, who sits on top of a beast. The beast she rides fits the description of the beast in Revelation 13 and Daniel 7.	October 14, 2024
The Beast From the Land	Revelation 13:11-18	People often talk about the Mark of the Beast, but there are multiple beasts in prophecy. It is the beast that comes out of the land that is associated with the Mark of the Beast. This episode will focus on the beast itself.	October 17, 2024
The Mark of The Beast	Revelation 13:15-18	This another topic where people have lots of opinions. When we dive into talking about the Mark of the Beast, we're going to have to talk about the Seal of God too. We'll be bouncing between a couple chapters in Revelation and scripture in the Old Testament but the major focus will be Revelation 13:15-18.	October 20, 2024
Christian Nationalism	All of the above	I told you, we need a lot of context before we can dive into this topic. I think this is the point in which we'll have discussed all of the foundational things needed for me to actually talk about this topic. 🙏🏽	October 23, 2024
The Marriage of the Lamb	Revelation 19	This should be a fun episode. This is the happy stuff, the celebration and the joy that belongs to believers. In this chapter we're going to see the downfall of evil and the rejoicing of the righteous. (I'm going to stick this in out of order to add interject some happiness to an otherwise bleak conversation.)	October 30, 2024
The Throne of God	Revelation 4; Daniel 10; Ezekiel 1	This episode arguably should be done sooner, but because we're on a time crunch to get to the Christian Nationalism episode I'm going to put it here since I don't think it's necessary for any of the information discussed above. This well also be a bit of a break from the doom and gloom to give us a glimpse at God's Throne.	November 6, 2024
The 7 Seals	Revelation 6 & 8:1	Can we get through the 7 seals in one episode? Does each seal need it's own episode? Can we group them and do maybe a part 1 and a part 2? We'll see when we get here, but regardless of how many episodes it takes, we need to talk about the first 7 calamities prophesied for the end times.	November 13, 2024
The 144,000	Revelation 7	In the midst of the 7 Seals, 144,000 people are sealed. Who are these people and what do they represent? When are they sealed? This is another thing believers can't agree on. In this episode we'll talk about some of the different theories and try to get some answers.	November 20, 2024
The 7 Trumpets	Revelation 8-9; 11:15-19	This is another set of 7 judgments (like the 7 seals). I'm not sure how many episodes we'll need but we'll cross that bridge when we get here.	November 27, 2024
The 3 Angels	Revelation 14	Before we get to the last set of 7 judgments, we get 3 angels giving us a message. Whether this happens sequentially or concurrently is a major question but we'll pause to address the messages given in this chapter before moving to the next set of judgments.	December 4, 2024
The 7 Bowls	Revelation 15-16	The third set of 7 judgments that are unleashed during the end times. Like the others, this might be one episode, two episodes, or one episdoe for each bowl. We'll play it by ear when we get here.	December 11, 2024
The Judgment of Babylon	Revelation 18	Babylon here is symbolic (we'll have gotten to that in the previous verses). Revelation 18 goes through the down fall of this end time persecutor of God's people and the judgment that is poured out on the world because of this power's wickedness. In this episode we'll walk through this judgment.	December 18, 2024
The Millennium and the Judgment	Revelation 20	This will be another "happy" episode. There's a bit of controversy over what exactly the millennial reign looks like (and some interesting thoughts on numerology and Sabbaths, too!) that we'll get into. We'll also talk about the judgment of Satan and the second death. The chapter talks about the first and second resurrections (re: the resurrection of the saints and the resurrection of the damned) so we'll dive in to that too.	December 25, 2024
New Jerusalem	Revelation 21-22	We always talk about going to heaven, but Revelation 21-22 talk about a new Earth being made and a new Jerusalem coming down to this Earth. This episode is going to talk about the promise of this great kingdom and the fulfillment of God's plan culminating in a world that mirrors what life should have been if we'd never left Eden.	January 1, 2025

References & Footnotes

1. Ree Hughes. "Revelation 2-3: The 7 Churches of Asia Minor". PSALMS to God. September 1, 2024
2. Pastor Ivor Myers. "Phototheology Card Deck". Power of the Lamb Ministry; visited September 2, 2023