God has given us one book that can change the entire direction of our lives, the Bible.

And in this study, journeying through scriptures, we will take a brief big-picture look at every book of the Bible,

tracing God's unfolding story from Genesis to Revelation.

Our prayer is that this journey will stir your heart to open God's word daily.

Let's join Scott Pauli for today's study.

In our journey through Scripture, we've come now to the final book that is known as a major prophet. It's interesting because it's a very brief book. It's the little book of Daniel. And of the

five major prophets, it probably is the book that you think you're most familiar with.

For example, you know the story of Daniel and the Lion's Den.

You know the story of the Hebrew boys cast into the fiery furnace and Christ coming to be with them.

And so there's enough biographical information and historical information in this book

that there's some famous stories well known here.

And yet the message of Daniel is often missed. Daniel, whose name means God is my judge, is a

fascinating character in Scripture. It's very possible he was a descendant of King Hezekiah.

And nothing negative is written about him. Think of that for just a moment.

Somewhere between his 16th and 20th year in life, he was taken captive. Remember, Jerusalem is

destroyed, the people are carried away into Babylonian captivity. Well, Daniel was taken away in the

first group of people that were deported. That means that as a child, as a young person, he grew up under the influence of a good king

named Josiah and a great preacher named Jeremiah.

I think this is wonderful, but it was in his youth that God prepared him to take his stand in Babylon.

And with our children and our grandchildren, we must take the window of time

God gives us to get them ready to live in this wicked world. Now Daniel lived through the

entire 70-year captivity and so he ties together both the period before the exile, during

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