THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, PART I
Series: Against the Grain
Limestone Baptist Church, Bedford, IN
Rev. Michael Wilhite
February 24, 2008 at 10:30am
Daniel 2:24-45
OPENING THOUGHTS
· PRAY HERE
· This morning we are coming to one of the most awe-inspiring prophecies in the Bible. Daniel chapter two has been the source of much controversy over the years from those on the liberal side of the isle. In fact, chapter two and chapters 7 thru 12 have been at the center of a hot debate in Christianity in recent decades.
· And this should not surprise us, beloved. The prophesies found in Daniel are so accurate that those who want to discount every miracle and every prophecy in the Bible will naturally attack these beloved chapters.
· Paul warns us in 2 Timothy that in the end times, even the church will turn aside to believe the lies of the enemy.
· 2 Timothy 3:1 says:
1 But understand this, that in the last days difficult times will come.
· And the Greek word for time there is actually kairos and not kronos. Kronos means chornological time, kairos means seasons, epochs, times not in a chronological sense, but time in a sense of a different season coming. Fall and Spring are different times or different kairos we might say. Paul is telling us that in the last days, difficult seasons will come upon the church.
· And similarly, Paul goes on to say in 2 Timothy 4:3-4 say:
3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,
4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
· And beloved, that time is already here. It is this type of people that want to attack the book of Daniel because it is so historically accurate that they want to discredit it altogether because it doesn’t fit with what they want to hear and know.
· But I want you to rest assured that Daniel is entirely accurate. Daniel contains some great prophesies about the end times and the times before the end. You can be assured that Daniel is trustworthy, if by nothing else that than simple fact that our Lord Jesus said he was.
· Jesus told us in Matthew 24:15 that Daniel was a prophet and spoke about the abomination of desolation that was going to come on Jerusalem in 70 AD when the Romans destroyed the Temple.
· Now, if Jesus refers to that passage out of the later chapters in Daniel as being spoken and written by Daniel, then we can rest assured that the liberals have it wrong! Daniel really did write the book and what is written in it really is true!
· And so we shouldn’t be afraid to come to these passages, beloved. Yes they do contain some things that are hard to understand. Yes the symbolism in them is a bit cryptic. But as we go through this great text today, we are seeking to demystify these things and put them in plain terms that we can understand. There is a lot of great truth that we can gain from this text this morning.
· Now last time, we saw that the king had a bad dream and wanted to destroy all the wise men of Babylon because they couldn’t interpret the dream for him.
· And we saw how Daniel reacted to this. He didn’t run and hide and stick his head in the ground like an ostrich, did he? No, he went and found his three friends Hananniah, Mishael and Azariah and called a prayer meeting. And we know that likely this was a Wednesday night, right?
· We saw the power involved when you live a life of integrity and make prayer your first priority when trials come your way. God answered Daniel’s request in a powerful way and we ended with verse 23 where we saw Daniel giving glory to God for His provision of the answer.
· This morning we are going to look at that interpretation that Daniel gave to King Nebuchadnezzar in depth.
DANIEL VERSE BY VERSE
· Now I want us to start out in verse 1 again briefly.
· 1 In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams; his spirit was troubled, and his sleep left him.
· We mentioned that he had a bad dream, but I want you to look very closely at the wording of the Biblical text here. Words are very important and if we overlook them, we can miss really big details.
· Notice that the king had dreams, not dream in the singular. Dreams in the plural. Now, Daniel only gives the interpretation for one dream, so what does this mean? I believe it is telling us that God was tormenting the king with the SAME dream over and over.
· It may have been all in one night or it likely could have been over several nights. But whatever the case, God was giving this same dream to Nebuchadnezzar over and over again to get his attention. And God certainly did get his attention! The Word tells us that Nebuchadnezzar couldn’t sleep! He was disturbed by the God who would ultimately smite him from his throne.
· Now let’s read verses 24 thru 30 to get the context of this interpretation. Remember that when we left off last week, Daniel was praising God for His answers. Now let’s continue on in the text.
24 Therefore Daniel went in to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He went and said thus to him, "Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon; bring me in before the king, and I will show the king the interpretation."
25 Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste and said thus to him: "I have found among the exiles from Judah a man who will make known to the king the interpretation."
26 The king said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, "Are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation?"
27 Daniel answered the king and said, "No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked,
28 but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these:
29 To you, O king, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be after this, and he who reveals mysteries made known to you what is to be.
30 But as for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because of any wisdom that I have more than all the living, but in order that the interpretation may be made known to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your mind.
· In this passage, we see that Daniel hurries back to Arioch and wants to talk to the king. And so the king’s bodyguard, Arioch, brings Daniel into the king in a hurry and look at Daniel’s response to the king’s question in verses 26 and 27.
· Nebuchadnezzar said in essence, “can you tell me the dream and its interpretation?” And Daniel replied so beautifully in verse 27:
27 Daniel answered the king and said, "No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked,
· Now I believe the reason Daniel specifically wanted to say this was to prove a point to the king. Those in whom he was trusting for an answer have no power to declare to the king what he needs to know. They are a false religion from the devil himself. Now look at verse 28:
28 but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days.
· Daniel goes on and says, look king, none of these people can answer you, BUT there is a God in heaven Who can speak and reveal this mystery. Now the point there is that Daniel is saying to Nebuchadnezzar, there is ONLY one God and He alone can reveal secrets to people.
· The real point was to show Nebuchadnezzar that his polytheistic ways were false and that there was only one God and He alone is worthy of worship.
· Notice also what Daniel says in verse 30. Daniel doesn’t take the credit for being able to interpret this dream, does he? He gives the glory right back to God where it belongs! And that is just what you do when you are living a life of integrity before God and the world. You don’t take the glory and the credit for yourself, you give it to where it belongs.
· Now just what was this recurring dream that the king kept on having night after night. Let’s look at verses 31-35 together. You will also see a visual of this on your bulletin insert. It helps to be able to visualize these things sometimes.
31 You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was awesome.
32 The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze,
33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay.
34 You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them.
35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
· And so this was the great dream that Nebuchadnezzar kept on having night after night. We see in this dream four distinct features of the statue and a different metal representing each of these features.
· We see a head of gold, a chest and arms of silver, a belly and thighs of bronze and legs of iron. Now the King James says a belly and thighs of brass, but this is not accurate. Brass didn’t come into existence until a long time after the Babylonian Empire was over. The Romans invented the concept of brass. And so, bronze is a more accurate understanding of this metal.
· Now, notice a descending order here in the value of the metal from head to feet. We go from gold to silver to bronze to iron. But also notice that these metals get stronger the further down on the statue that you go. Iron is far stronger than gold, isn’t it?
· Now keep all of that in mind. We’ve now seen the dream, let’s look at what it means. We are going to see that this dream represents five separate kingdoms over the course of history. Look with me at verses 36-43:
36 "This was the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation.
37 You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory,
38 and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all--you are the head of gold.
39 Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth.
40 And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these.
41 And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay.
42 And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle.
43 As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.
· On your bulletin insert, you’ll see that I’ve listed five kingdoms for you to fill in as we go through this. The first one we come to is Babylon. Look at verses 37-38 with me again:
37 You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory,
38 and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of man, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all--you are the head of gold.
· Nebuchadnezzar is the head of gold. Now this would have been easy for Nebuchadnezzar to understand for more than one reason. First, he was a very prideful man as we will see in chapter three next week. But, more than just that, Babylon was known for its lavish gold on the king’s buildings. Gold was everywhere in the capital city.
· Also, and I think more importantly, God is mocking the chief pagan deity of Babylon here. The chief deity of the Babylonian Empire that we encounter here is the false god Marduk. Marduk was known by many titles and this is quite common. We know Jesus by the names “Lord”, “King of Kings” and “Savior” for just a few examples. It’s very common for deities to be known by more than one title.
· One of Marduk’s many titles is “the god of gold”. I think that God is specifically mocking the false god Marduk here. In essence, our true God is saying to Nebuchadnezzar, “that false god won’t save you.” And we see this by the rock that is cut out of the mountain and destroys all of these kingdoms and blows them away with the wind. It’s as if God is saying to the king, I will destroy all of your gods and there is nothing you can do about it.
· Now the second kingdom we come to is not identified for us in this text. However, history tells us what it was. And Daniel chapter 8 tells us that this kingdom is the Medo-Persian Empire. Verse 30 says:
39 Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth.
· The Medo-Persian Empire is identified by the silver chest and the two arms of silver. And this is fitting imagery, because the Medo-Persian Empire is actually made up of two separate kingdoms that came together under the leadership of king Cyrus. The Median Empire and the Persian Empire combined under Cyrus’ leadership into one kingdom. And Daniel 5:31 tells us that the Medes did indeed overthrow the Babylonians just as God had told Nebuchadnezzar that it would be.
· The third kingdom we come to is the belly and thighs of bronze. This represents the Greek Empire. And bronze is a very fitting representation for them because the Greeks were known for their bronze. They used it extensively in their weapons of war.
· This kingdom is said to “rule over all the earth” and indeed it did. At one time, it ruled over all of the known earth at that time. Alexander the Great was the first to rule this large of a kingdom in the entire history of the world.
· Now, there is also a fourth kingdom in this dream. Verse 40 tells us:
40 And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these.
· This is the Roman Empire. The Lord gives very interesting imagery here. It is strong as iron and indeed the Romans ruled everything at one time. They were the strongest empire the world has ever seen.
· Also, notice that there are two feet. We know that the Roman Empire eventually split into two divisions – the east and the west under what became known as the Holy Roman Empire. And so the two legs represent the Western Church Empire and the Eastern Church Empire.
· Now verses 41-43 go on to say:
41 And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay.
42 And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle.
· 43 As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.
· Notice that Daniel spends as much time on this last part of the Roman Empire as he does on all the rest of the 3 other empires combined! This really should tell us that we need to pay special attention to these verses.
· To really understand this, we need to know a bit of theology here. In the end times, there are basically four main events that we need to concern ourselves with for great understanding. Those four events are the rapture, the Great Tribulation, the Second Coming and the Millennial Reign of Christ. The book of Revelation encompasses all of these.
· The rapture, of course, is that glorious time when Christ will send forth his angels to gather together his elect from the four corners of the earth and will call us home in the blink of an eye.
· I want you to turn with me to 1 Corinthians 15 just briefly. Let’s look at verses 51-57 and then I’ll make some brief comments about them.
51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory."
55 "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
· Now just what exactly is it that Paul is talking about here? Paul is talking about the rapture of the church and it is a glorious thought! In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we’re gonna be gone from this sin sick world! What a beautiful thought!
· Thanks be to God, Paul says, because there is victory in Jesus! That is a beautiful thought and one for which we should long constantly. Who wants to live in this hell-hole when we could be in heaven? And it is a hell-hole! Hell has come to earth. satan is alive and active and he is bringing about hell on this earth. But there is victory in the Lord.
· The Rapture is a beautiful doctrine. I long for that day when God calls me to meet Him in the air. I pray that it is soon and that I get to participate in it! What a glorious doctrine and hope that we have.
· After the rapture happens and we’re gone from this earth, what will happen to the world? The world will then go through The Great Tribulation. This is a literal 7 year period of hell on earth, such as has never been seen before. We won’t go in-depth in this topic right now, as Daniel goes in-depth with this later on when we talk about the 70 weeks.
· After the Great Tribulation comes the Second Coming of Christ and then Christ will set up the Millennial Reign on earth, which will be a literal 1,000 year reign of peace with Christ as King sitting on David’s throne. Christ will literally fulfill all the promises of the Old Testament regarding his second coming and the future kingdom He is bringing.
· Now, back in Daniel 2:41 we see that the Roman Empire will have toes mixed with iron and clay. Let’s read verses 44 and 45 to understand this more.
44 And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever,
45 just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure."
· Verse 44 says “in the days of those kings” and so we must ask ourselves, which kings? We see that in the days of those kings, God will set up His everlasting kingdom on earth. And this means that in the days of those kings, God will send the 7 year Tribulation and will come again and set up His Kingdom that will not end.
· “Those kings” in verse 44 refers back to the kings of the Roman Empire in verses 41-43. But this poses a problem for many people. We know that the Roman Empire has ended, so how can Christ set up all of this DURING the Roman Empire?
· I believe that, while the Roman Empire has ended, it’s principles have not. We would probably be better off if we understood this 4th Kingdom not as the Roman Empire, but just simply as The West. All Western nations have roots in the Roman Empire – even the USA. We came from England, which itself came out of the Holy Roman Empire.
· Our system of government with the senate and congress is almost exactly like that of the Roman Empire. We took their ideas and made them our own. And, likewise, all of the other Western nations have done so in other ways. In actuality, the principles of the Roman Empire are still around. We owe much of our culture today to them.
· A foot has five toes each and we have two feet here. So we have ten toes, right? The Bible tells us that these ten toes will be iron mixed with clay. And we see in verse 43 that:
· 43 As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.
· These ten toes represent ten kingdoms in the end times. This will be a united federation of ten countries at the end of the world when the antichrist comes into play and sets up his one world government, reviving the Roman Empire.
· We see that “in the days of those kings”, that is to say that in the days of this revived Roman Empire comprised of ten nations, God will begin to set into motion His eternal plans to set up His divine Kingdom forever.
· What are those divine plans He is going to set into motion? Read Revelation and you will see them. It’s basically the breaking of seven seals, the blowing of seven trumpets and the dumping out of seven bowls. These are judgments that God is going to send upon the world during the Great Tribulation.
· We won’t have to go through this because we have already gone up in the Rapture. God is not going to punish His church. We are His bride and we are out of the picture in Revelation during the Great Tribulation time. We come back into the picture at the Second Coming of Christ when He is going to set up the Millennial Reign.
· It is this Millennial Reign of Christ that Daniel is speaking of in verses 44-45. God is literally going to break into pieces the entire statue in this dream. He is going to crush every nation and vanquish every foe. He will set up a kingdom of everlasting righteousness at the end of the world.
· Now, in the dream we see that the stone is cut out of the mountain with no hands and this stone is going to crush all of the kingdoms of the world. So what is this stone? Or better yet, who is this stone?
· I believe Scripture is abundantly clear. 1 Peter 2:6-8 says:
6 For it stands in Scripture: "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."
7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,"
8 and "A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense." They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
· Who is that stone cut out of the mountain in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream? It’s Christ! Christ is that stone and the stone represents Him and His kingdom that He is going to set up. He is the one Who will vanquish all his foes and set up an everlasting Kingdom. A Kingdom that will be full of righteousness and will last forever.
· Now God is really mocking the false god Marduk here. Back in verse 38 we saw that Marduk was called “the god of gold” and Christ was mocking him by destroying him in the end. But there is more symbolism here too.
· Marduk was also known as “the great mountain” and for the stone to be cut out of a great mountain would have shown Nebuchadnezzar that this dream was from the gods. It would have got his attention.
· Marduk was known also as “the lord of the wind” and this is really key to understanding this part. Back in verse 35 of the dream, we see this:
· 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
· God is mocking the false god Marduk here by controlling the wind, which the people thought Marduk was in compete control of. Instead, God is destroying all false religions in one fell swoop and is turning them into dust that is carried away by the wind – Marduk is destroyed and carried away be the wind that he was supposed to control.
· This is really quite amazing. Let us be abundantly clear. God hate false religion and he will not share His glory with another. And some glorious day, God is going to destroy all kingdoms of this world and set up a Kingdom of His own that will never go away.
· Scripture speaks of this Kingdom in so many verses in the Old Testament.
o In Micah 4:2-4 and Isaiah 32:17-18 it’s called a Kingdom of Peace.
o In Isaiah 61:7,10 it’s called joy.
o In Isaiah 40:1-2, it’s called comfort.
o In Amos 9:13-15, there is no poverty in the Kingdom.
o In Joel 2:28-29, there is no sickness in the Kingdom.
o Isaiah 9:3-7 tells us that Christ will rule as King in this Kingdom.
o Zechariah 8:3 tells us that Jerusalem will be the political center of the world in this Kingdom.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
· And we could go on and on with verse after verse detailing just exactly what the Kingdom will look like. But in the remaining time we have, I briefly want to read Isaiah 11, the entire chapter to you. It is such a beautiful picture of comfort and peace. This is what the Kingdom will be like. Let the words of Scripture be a comfort to us. This is what our reward will be one day!
· READ ISAIAH 11:1-16 (entire chapter) HERE.
· Look specifically at verse 6, a very famous verse you have certainly heard before:
6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.
· Oh what a beautiful picture of peace that is! The lion, the wolf and the lamb will all lie down together in peace! There will be no war. There will be no famine. No more sin at all. What a glorious day!
· And beloved, this is what awaits us in eternity! What a glorious thought Daniel has brought to our minds this morning. What a beautiful prophecy God gave thru Daniel.
· And this is the promise and the hope that we have if we have trusted in Christ as our Lord and Savior.
