The Colossal Image Series

If we say something is big we assume we have said something

important. If the grand stand is packed with the biggest crowd ever,

this is a big deal, even if the game was not worth seeing. The big

blast is all the rage on the screen or on the stage. Everything has to

be gigantic to get our attention, for we are brainwashed into thinking

that only the big is of real value. Hollywood never makes anything

less than spectacular. Everything is advertised as bigger and better

than ever. New terms have to be coined to keep up with the trend

toward the idolatry of the big.

W. J. Bryan says, "There are three kinds of larceny-petty

larceny, grand larceny, and glorious larceny. Glorious larceny is

thieving on such a large scale that its brilliant success atones for its

moral crookedness." When men worship bigness they care not if it

be evil or good just so long as it is big. The little lie will be rejected,

but Hitler proved that men will fall down and worship before the big

lie. Booth Tarkington has put the prayer of modern man's idolatry

into words:

Give me of Thyself, O Bigness,

Power to get more Power;

Riches to get more Riches;

Give me Thy sweat to get more sweat.

Give me of Thy Bigness to get more Bigness for myself.

O Bigness, for Thine is the Power and the Glory,

And there is no end but Bigness, forever and ever.

Man has really always been this way in his love for bigness. It is

just that today he has greater opportunity and a greater variety of

bigness. Nebuchadnezzar was a fanatic for bigness in his big city of

Babylon with its mighty walls and tremendous temples. The ancient

world went in for bigness in a big way. From the tower of Babel on

man has tried to build something so big that it would be the wonder

of the world and last forever. These Goliath works of man are

always built on clay feet, however, and they crumble when struck by

one stone aimed by one of God's Davids. This is what the dream of

Nebuchadnezzar is all about. It is about the colossal kingdoms of

men being demolished by the kingdom of God. A huge image of gold,

silver, bronze, iron and clay represents the 4 world empires from

Nebuchadnezzar to the coming of Christ. Here is real bigness, for

these 4 were the only 4 to ever rule the whole known world.

One of the amazing aspects of the book of Daniel is that it

predicts that there would be only 4 such universal powers before Christ,

and then no more after His coming. History has confirmed

this, for since the fall of the Roman Empire there has never again been

a nation that ruled the world. There have been great empires like the

British on which the sun never set, but no king of England has ever

been the king of the world. There were 4 universal kingdoms in a

row and then no more. Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's

dream gives us an outline view of history up to the coming of Christ.

The stone of Christ brought all of the bigness crashing down into

dust and His kingdom began to replace them by spreading into all

the world to become the fifth and final universal kingdom built on a

solid rock foundation, which would make it the only eternal kingdom

that would never pass away.

The King said to his army, "Go into all the world and win men

to my allegiance." Jesus, without force and destructive weapons,

intended to build the greatest kingdom of all so that loyal subjects

will bow to him as king out of every nation, tribe and language.

Jesus thinks big also, but His bigness is based on growth and the

winning of individuals one by one, and not the bigness gain by force

like the kingdoms of the world. Force is faster, but it always has a

foundation of clay that will bring it to destruction. The way of Christ

is slow but sure, and His kingdom will have no end. This is a brief

summary of the significance of the colossal image of

Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

This great image represented nations. It was common for

ancient coins to contain human figures to represent the nation. We

do it yet today when we use Uncle Sam to symbolize our nation. This

image was so big and so bright that it was frightening even before

Nebuchadnezzar knew what it meant. How much more frightening it

must have been when he knew this giant statue would tumble and be

demolished. Keble wrote,

In outline dim and vast

These fearful shadows cast,

The giant forms of empire on their way