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An in-depth look at the Word of God, the Plays On Word community, and the Plays - with original music - we perform, that are based on the Word of God. New episodes drop Fridays at 7AM EST! To find out how Plays On Word Theater can perform 'LIVE on YOUR STAGE' and to support this missionary & podcast visit: https://playsonword.org/
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Ep 130: The Power of Audio Scripture Transforms Faith and Fuels Storytelling (Part 3)
"What happens when faith collides with earthly power? The stories of Daniel reveal a pattern of divine deliverance that speaks directly to anyone facing opposition for their beliefs. In today's world, we NEED unwavering faith."
Pastor Teddy, a.k.a. Fred Kenney, Jr., explores Daniel chapters 5-6, examining the themes of deliverance, faithfulness, and God's sovereignty throughout the Bible story. This continuation of his behind-the-scenes look at Plays on Word's upcoming Daniel production reveals how these ancient texts remain relevant today.
• Reading of Daniel chapter 5, featuring Belshazzar's feast and the handwriting on the wall
• Reading of Daniel chapter 6, telling the story of Daniel in the lions' den
• Discussion of the overarching theme of divine deliverance throughout the book
• Exploration of how Daniel and his friends stood firm against cultural pressure
• Brief historical context about the Babylonian exile and subsequent Persian rule
• Timeline references from Josiah through the close of the Old Testament
• Mention of Jeremiah's prophecies running parallel to Daniel's experiences
• Explanation of how Daniel's prophecies included future world empires
We'll continue exploring Daniel next week, diving even deeper into these powerful themes of deliverance and faith under pressure. If you'd like a PDF timeline of these historical events, email or text us and we'll send it to you.
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Lord, you know you will now listen to play.
Speaker 2:It's the best, because the king's order was so urgent. The flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, meshach and Abednego, and these three men fell bound into the burning fiery furnace. Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished. He said to his counselors Did we not cast three men bound into the fire? But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of a god. You're the only name. You're the only name. You're the only name.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to Plays on Word Radio, where we discuss, analyze, work and play on the Word of God. Thank you for joining us on this excursion. Today let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenny Jr, the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.
Speaker 2:All right, all right, all right. Well, welcome to Plays on Word Radio. All y'all out there listening, amen, welcome back. Amen. Thank you very much, josh Taylor and Katie Kenney. My name is Fred David Kenney Jr and we are Plays on Word. Hallelujah, amen. Thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 2:It's always great to get together with you this short period of time, usually on Friday morning, but some of you guys stream it a little later in the week or whenever you stream it, it's all good, but one thing we do is we worship the good Lord, we praise God, we dig into the word and we also do interviews with people. We got some stuff coming up. I believe you're going to be blessed and, yeah, that's what we do. So last week and the week before, what we did was go behind the curtain on our Dan production that we are working on and I played you chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4 from the Scripture. I recorded the Bible, but I recorded it from a first-person perspective, as if Daniel's telling the story himself, and a lot of times I'll put that on loop or put the scripture on loop and listen to it and just saturate myself with it, so I become familiar with it and that's how I'm able to remember well, I'm able to remember because of the Lord, but he uses that tool, the technique, to help me to remember and got some feedback. Some people were really blessed by just going through the book of Daniel, the way we are first person, as if Daniel's telling a story. So we're real excited about that. We're excited about don't have a launch date yet, still working it out. It's been a little bit of a challenge planning a church and continuing to do plays and work on a new play same time. That's a little bit of a challenge and I would appreciate your prayers for me on that. Pray for katie, as she's been doing a lot of work, and I'm going to leave it at that. We will disclose some stuff to you soon, and yeah, so what we have is we have chapter five and six to go and I'm not going to waste any time. Let's dive into it. Check it out.
Speaker 2:Chapter 5. King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar, his father, had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought. That the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar, his father, had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem, be brought that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. Then they brought in the golden vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines drank from them. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone.
Speaker 2:Immediately, the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace opposite the lampstand, and the king saw the hand as it wrote. Then the king's color changed and his thoughts alarmed him. His limbs gave way and his knees knocked together. The king called loudly to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, the astrologers. The king declared to the wise men of Babylon Whoever reads this writing and shows me its interpretation shall be clothed with purple and have a gold chain around his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. And all the king's wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or make known to the king the interpretation. Then King Belshazzar was greatly alarmed and his color changed and his lords were perplexed. The queen, because of the words of the king, and his lords came into the banquet hall and the queen declared O king, live forever. Let not your thoughts alarm you or your color change. There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods In the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom like the wisdom of the holy gods In the days of your father. Light and understanding and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods were found in him and King Nebuchadnezzar, your father, your father. The king made him chief of the magicians, enchanters, chaldeans and astrologers, because an excellent spirit, knowledge and understanding to interpret dreams, explain riddles and solve problems were found in this.
Speaker 2:Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now, let Daniel be called and he will show the interpretation. Then I was brought in before the king. The king answered and said to me you are that, daniel, one of the exiles of Judah whom the king, my father, brought from Judah. I have heard of you that the spirit of the gods is in you and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you. Now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me to read this writing and to make known to me its interpretation, but they could not show the interpretation of the matter. But I have heard that you can give interpretations and solve problems. Now, if you can read the writing and make known to me its interpretation, you shall be clothed with purple and have a gold chain around your neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. Then I answered and said before the king Let your gifts be for yourself and give your rewards to another. Nevertheless, I will read the writing to the king and make known to him the interpretation.
Speaker 2:O king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar, your father, kingship and greatness and glory and majesty. And because of the greatness that he gave him, all the peoples, nations and languages trembled and feared before him. Whom he would? He killed and whom he would he kept alive. Whom he would? He raised up and whom he would he humbled. But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was brought down from his kingly throne and his kingly glory was taken from him. He was driven from among the children of mankind and his mind was made like that of a beast and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was fed grass like an ox and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, until he knew that the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind and sets over it whom he will.
Speaker 2:And you, his son Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven, and the vessels of his house have been brought in before you, and you, your lords, your wives and your concubines have drunk wine from them, and you have praised the gods of silver and gold and of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or know, iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but the God in whose hand is your breath and whose are all your ways you have not honored. Then, from his presence, the hand was sent and this writing was inscribed. And this is the writing that was inscribed Mene, mene, tekel and Parsin. This is the interpretation of the matter. Mene, god has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting. Peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians. Then Belshazzar gave the command and I, daniel, was clothed with purple and a gold chain was put around my neck and a proclamation was made about me that I should be the third ruler in the kingdom. That very night Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was killed and Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about 62 years old.
Speaker 2:Chapter 6 6. It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps to be throughout the whole kingdom and over them three presidents, of whom I was one, to whom these satraps should give an account so that the king might not suffer loss. Then I became distinguished above all the other presidents and satraps because an excellent spirit was in me and the king planned to set me over the whole kingdom. Then the presidents and the satraps sought to find a ground for complaint against me with regard to the kingdom, but they could find no ground for complaint or any fault because I was faithful and no error or fault was found in me. Then these men said we shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God. Then these presidents and satraps came by agreement to the king and said to him O King Darius, live forever. All the presidents of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an injunction that whoever makes petition to any god or man for thirty days except you, o king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, o king, establish the injunction and sign the document so that it cannot be changed according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked. Therefore, king Darius signed the document and injunction. Therefore, king Darius signed the document and injunction.
Speaker 2:When I knew that the document had been signed, I went to my house where I had windows in my upper chamber open towards Jerusalem. I got down on my knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before my God, as I had done previously. Then these men came by agreement and they found me making petition and plea before my God. Then they came near and said before the king concerning the injunction O king, did you not sign an injunction that anyone who makes petition to any God or man within thirty days except you, o king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered and said the thing stands fast according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked. Then they answered and said before the king, daniel, who was one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, o king, or the injunction you have signed, but makes petition three times a day. Then the king, when he heard these words, was very distressed and he set his mind to deliver me and he labored until the sun went down to rescue me. Then these men came by agreement to the king and said to the king Now, o king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or ordinance that the king establishes can be changed. Then the king commanded, and I was brought and cast into the den of lions. The king declared to me May your God, whom you serve, continually deliver you. And a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of his lords, that nothing might be changed concerning me. Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting. No diversions were brought to him and sleep fled from him.
Speaker 2:Then, at break of day, the king arose and went in haste to the den of lions. As he came near to the den where I was, he cried out in a tone of anguish. The king declared O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions? Then I said to the king O king, live forever. My God sent his angel and shut the lions' mouths. O king, live forever. My God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouths. And I have not been harmed, because I was found blameless before him and also before you, o king, I have done no harm. Then the king was exceedingly glad and commanded that I be taken up out of the den. So I was taken up out of the den and no kind of harm was found on me because I trusted in my God. And the king commanded that those men who maliciously accused me were brought in and cast into the den of lions they, their children and their wives. And before they reached the bottom of the den, the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones into pieces.
Speaker 2:Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, languages that dwell in all the earth Peace be multiplied to you. I make a decree in all my royal dominion, people are to tremble in fear before the God of Daniel, for he is the living God enduring forever. His kingdom shall never be destroyed and his dominion shall be to the end. He delivers and rescues. He works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth. The end he delivers and rescues. He works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth. He who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions. So I prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian. Yeah, amen, amen to that. So daniel, yeah, oh, that's. That note was a little long there at the end. There, it's okay. Yeah, daniel, uh, uh, escaped the jaws of the lines like that and hopefully you've been able to see some of the theme here. Probably should just go in and do a study on Daniel. Maybe we'll do that next.
Speaker 2:But the idea of deliverance this is something that would have been very encouraging to the well, originally, the people that would have received this prophecy, this book, would have been the people that were held captive in Babylon, and then actually the Persian Empire, which is modern-day Iran now, and Babylon is in modern-day Iraq, but that area, there the Israelites, were taken captive early on the first chapter of the book, and this book spans about 70 years. That 70-year captivity. There was a, there was a um, what is the word I'm looking for? There was, uh, not an exodus, but there was captivity. People were taken captive in 605 bc, first by nebuchadnezzar in 605 bc, and that was when daniel was kid, young guy, young man, young teenager, whatever. And that was in 605 BC. Then in 598, it goes backwards towards zero there In 598 BC. That's when Ezekiel was taken.
Speaker 2:The book of Jeremiah is running in the background throughout this whole section, though Jeremiah was around. He was a young boy, around the same age as Josiah, king Josiah, and then Josiah had his sons and his sons were the kings when all this kicked off. And Jeremiah's prophecy, his books. That's why it's important when you read Jeremiah it's not chronological. You want to see what years is this prophecy taking place? Who's the king, what's going on? It's not a point A to point B type of book. He lets you know by the year the same with Daniel as well.
Speaker 2:When you, daniel, there's timestamps, there's markers there at Babylon until presumably his death. There's no recording of him ever going back to Judah there that were in captivity, but at the time it was written it wasn't even captivity because they were, um, wouldn't be long before Zerubbabel, uh, and those guys would start rebuilding the temple, they would start on that and then, a very long time time after that, ezra would come back to finish the work. But these guys, they started the work, zerubbabel, and then the book of Esther happens some time after that, many years after that. So Zerubbabel in the temple, 520-ish, yeah, 520. Doing this off the top of my head, I tell you what I'll do is I will go back and get you the exact dates. So, daniel, this whole episode with the you go back a couple chapters there where the handwriting was on the wall and the Babylonian Empire was defeated one day, and that whole episode with Cyrus the Mede coming in this is a historical fact that Cyrus came in under the, they diverted the water and they, they just came into Babylon and they just declared we're here, we're taking over, and they, the whole, like the army guys, came in under the gate after the water dropped. The water level dropped, uh, that's a whole nother story we will get. We'll get into also, um, the though in 538 BC, then 520 BC.
Speaker 2:Go down from 538 to 520, you have that's when Haggai, zechariah, the temple rebuilding, all the way to, I believe, 515. And then you go farther down and that's where you have the book of Esther, in 481, I believe Somewhere around there. Like I said, this is top of my head. I do not have it in front of me, but I'm pretty good, so you can go back and check and I bet you I'm pretty darn close. Yeah, the 41. And then you go down farther. You will get to the book of Ezra. He's way after Zerubbabel Although he writes about the temple and Zerubbabel and those guys, but his, um, he's writing from 80 years down the down the road, uh, and then Nehemiah after him for 40 ish, somewhere on there, I believe. And uh, I made a PDF. If anybody wants it I can send it to you. Text me, email me and I will dig up the PDF. I got to dig it up. I don't know where it is. It's on a hard drive somewhere where I did a timeline. I did a timeline from Josiah all the way down to the closing of the Old Testament and the 70 years of Jeremiah, the prophecy of the 70 years in exile, and so that's the long way around it.
Speaker 2:This book is awesome. The Word of God is awesome. You are awesome for getting into the Word of God and getting it into you. We are going to continue this, though. We're going to continue this study, probably next week. We do have some stuff scheduled, but I'm not sure. Maybe I might change it around, because this is kind of interesting. I hope that you've been blessed so far, and we really didn't dive in headfirst into the actual text, the depth of the text, we just flew over it.
Speaker 2:Maybe we'll go back and look at some of these amazing things here, but this, the story of deliverance that happens throughout these chapters, over and over, and it's about trusting God, putting your faith in God, the God of Israel, and in spite of and in the face of the powers that be and opposition from the world. I mean, you had it early on um with uh, hanani, mishai, azariah, those guys, they stood face to face to the king. We're like nah, we're not bowing down. You have it with Daniel the deliverance saving all the wise men by delivering the dream, because God is the one who intervened and gave him the interpretation. You also have the prophecies of the world empires that come up. You have the Babylonian empire that's there at the time, but Daniel prophesies about the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire and then the Roman Empire. Yeah, and that's pictured with the gold, the silver, the bronze and the iron, with the baked clay, and yeah so, and then you have the deliverance that we just saw in the lion's den, where Daniel did not bow to the pressure of the world yet trusted and went against the culture and everything else and trusted in the God of Israel and was again delivered. It's just as overarching deliverance theme, but there's even more themes that are happening in this book.
Speaker 2:That's no way I could address it right now, although many of you probably want to dive in deeper. So maybe we'll do that, um, next couple weeks, dive in a little deeper, and that'll help me prep for this play as well. So pray about it, let me know what you think and if you want that pdf, I'll send it to you. Um, it, I took it from, let's see. Uh, daniel, I think. I think a pdf is from daniel. And then the decree. Yeah, the decree that points to the messiah coming and when that went forth which we know now by looking back at it, that it was when in nehemiah, when the order to rebuild the wall starts, and then you have the time all the way until Messiah comes in and it's cut off and that whole thing. So, yeah, I tell you what, until next week, the Lord bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.
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