Daniel pt 2

Daniel 2 is a chapter about how King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that he wants interpreted. He doesn't tell the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, diviners, astrologers, wise men (you get the point) counsel the content of his dream. I've heard it posed that the king forgot what his dream was about. That isn't hinted at in the Scripture. The king doesn't tell these men his dream and expects them to give both the content of the dream and its interpretation to insure that it is the true interpretation of the dream. He doesn't want to be tricked.

It is then said by the sages of Babylon that no man possesses such power as the king asks, and that the only way that the kings request can be answered is by that of the gods.

So the stage is set.

Does God speak with mortal men? Does God give wisdom and understanding to mere flesh? The sorcerers of the Chaldeans didn't think so. Of course, we know that their gods were only wood carvings overlaid with gold. We know and they knew that the gods were ultimately just these carved images that don't say or do anything.

But there is a man in Babylon by the name of Daniel. And there is a God of the Hebrews (from whom Daniel comes from). And this God does speak. He does give wisdom. He does reveal mysteries.

So even though it is impossible for man, nothing is impossible with God.

Lets just take a look at this dream and interpretation:

Daniel 2:31: “You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

Daniel 2:36: “This was the dream. Now we will tell the king its interpretation. 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, 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. Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. 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. 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. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. 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. 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, 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.”

Here is the framework for the End Times. Every vision in the book of Daniel gives more and more detail to build upon, but this is the very bare foundation. God gave a dream to the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar.

In this dream, the king saw a statue. The interpretation is pretty obvious when you read how Daniel has interpreted it. The head was said to be Nebuchadnezzar. After him will come another king from another nation to destroy his kingdom. We know that this was Medo-Persia. Both history and the Biblical Scriptures attest to that. After the Medo-Persian Empire comes another nation to rule the world: Greece. Then a kingdom called Rome will conquer Greece.

Keep in mind that God is revealing only the foundation. We will find later that there are hints in the book of Daniel as to who these kings are. For now, it is only the natures that are given. However, I want to draw you attention to two things: this is one statue, and each metal is weaker than the last.

Each nation that rises up against the last is weaker in strength than the last kingdom. Silver is lesser to gold, bronze is lesser to silver, and iron is lesser to bronze. The feet on the statue are made of iron and clay. The question with most scholars about these feet is whether they are past or future. I believe that if I understand the interpretation, these feet are both. In the dream the iron represents Rome. Rome was run by a consul for a long time. Just before the turn of the millennium (from BCE to AD), Caesar Augustus took his throne.

Caesar Julius is well known as the first Caesar, but he was not the first authoritative emperor of Rome. Julius died and a strange star was seen in the heavens. This strange star is recorded in both history books as legend and also in the Bible as the star that led the Magi to Jesus. The Roman magicians and astrologers claimed that this star was Caesar Julius ascending to the right hand of the father god Zeus. Julius then claimed, “If my father was a god, then I am the son of god.” So it was declared that the emperors of Rome (the Caesars) were gods in the flesh. This started a new age in Rome.

I believe that this is a hint of what the feet might have been.

The feet could very well, and probably are, future as well. This doesn’t diminish the first interpretation at all. There was indeed the stone cut out of the mountain without human hands that came and established the kingdom of God on the earth. His name was Jesus. But there is a yet future demonstration of this because the statue has not been crushed and blown away. The nations of the earth still exist.

This is where I need to talk a little bit about it being one statue. The fact that it is one statue and not many statues is a representation that they are all ruled by one person: Satan. Though there are different rulers and different gods being worshipped and different nations and different practices, they are all under the guidance and dictation of Satan by being the very representation of his character.

The nations rage and conspire against each other. There is cheating and manipulation. Many of these pagan nations are very immoral.

In that very aspect of them being ruled by the mindset and value system of the devil, they forfeit their freedom to be governed and ruled over by the devil. This is why at the very end of it, all the parts of the statue are crushed and blown away by the wind. When Christ came, He died upon the cross and resurrected. He took the authority from the devil. He now has all authority of everything.

But if Jesus is the one who has all authority (Matthew 28:18), then why are there still kingdoms that aren’t under His rule and authority?

This is where the second interpretation comes in. There is a fulfillment of the dream in a sense with Rome. But here is where it wasn’t fulfilled. The dream ends with the Kingdom of God being in place on this earth. So that kingdom of iron and clay must be something yet future. This is will come up again and again. Follow me because many times translators and commentators alike will purposefully make the statement that this kingdom that must be future happened in the past.