June 2025

Bible students have long seen the connection between Daniel 3 and what Revelation teaches about last-day events. And with good cause, too, because Daniel 3—with the command, punishable by death, to “worship the image” (Dan. 3:15)—reflects what Revelation teaches about the command, punishable by death, to worship another image. “He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed” (Rev. 13:15, NKJV).

However much fealty Nebuchadnezzar, impressed by what Daniel had done, at first paid to Daniel and to his God (see Daniel 2, especially vv. 46–48), it didn’t last.

Read Daniel 3:1–12. What significance can be found in the fact that the statue was all gold and that the king demanded that it be worshiped?

One of the most powerful prophecies in all Scripture is Daniel 2. Writing more than five hundred years before Christ, the prophet set out world history, starting from his time in Babylon and then through Media-Persia, Greece, Rome, and the breakup of Rome into the nations of modern Europe as they exist today.

Read for This Week’s Study

Dan. 2:31–45; Dan. 3:1–12, 17, 18; Rev. 13:11–17; Rom. 1:18–25; Acts 12:1–17; Matt. 12:9–14.

Memory Text:

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7, NKJV).

This week, we will look at two more Bible stories that foreshadow last-day events in remarkable detail.

“The First King of Israel,” pp. 605, 606, in Patriarchs and Prophets.

There is an unfortunate tendency among some Christians to dwell on the hard things of Bible prophecy. We see that trying times lie ahead, and the study of prophecy can become fear-based, focusing on hardship instead of the promised resolution to the story. While God does not sugarcoat the future, and He is honest about the events that will transpire between now and the close of the great controversy, it is important always to read the story to the end.

In the story of Esther, we meet Haman, who is hungry for position and power. He is given a great degree of prominence in the empire, above all the other princes (Esther 3:1).

Boaz falls deeply in love with Ruth and wishes to marry her, but there is a significant barrier: there is a closer relative who also has a claim on the woman and the land. If we consider Boaz to be a type of Christ, this situation may reveal an issue at stake in the great controversy. Christ loves us, but there is a “closer relative” who also has a claim: Satan.

What do the following passages reveal about Satan’s claim on humanity? (Job 1:6–11; Matt. 4:8, 9; Jude 1:9; Luke 22:31).

Naomi asked that her name be changed to Mara because of the bitterness that had fallen over her life (see Ruth 1:20). Our relationship with our Creator has been irreparably damaged by sin, forcing us into spiritual poverty. Our prospects are dim, and we spend our lives gleaning what we can from the edges of the field, living on the scraps of joy that can still be found in a broken world. But it all changes the moment we make a remarkable discovery: God has not forgotten us.

Critics of the Christian faith have often pointed to the brutal reality of living in this world as evidence that: (a) God does not exist, (b) He is powerless to intervene when bad things happen, or (c) He doesn’t care when we hurt. Many of the stories of the Bible, however, provide abundant evidence that none of these assumptions are correct. True, God is allowing the human race to reap the consequences of rebellion against Him.