InPerspective

Harry Reeder: Daniel is determined to be faithful to the Lord, and so he gives the interpretation of the dream. And out of this will come the installation of Daniel into a position that he will hold through five kings and two kingdoms. He will hold all the way to age 80 plus. He will live his entire life influencing the kingdoms and be used of the Lord in miraculous ways.

Announcer (Male): Putting life in biblical perspective with Dr. Harry L. Reeder. This is InPerspective, a radio and internet ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

The famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud wrote *The Interpretation of Dreams*, and we can only imagine what methods he would have used to interpret King Nebuchadnezzar's disturbing dream. But Daniel interpreted the king's dream by fervently seeking the Lord and entrusting the situation and his very life to the ultimate author of truth, wisdom, and understanding.

Stay with us now as Dr. Reeder continues our series Daniel's Memorable Memoirs and Message, and he takes us to Daniel chapter 2 verses 31 through 49 for today's teaching, the second half of his message, "A Disturbing Dream and a Determined Daniel, Part Two."

Harry Reeder: Now, if you're King Nebuchadnezzar with the ego of an emperor, what would you say to that? I don't know about you, but I'd probably take a look at Daniel. "You want to put money on this, buddy? You want to find out who's king and what's going to happen and all that?" I mean, that's what you would tend to think.

But Nebuchadnezzar doesn't. Now, is that because there's just this small spark of humility in Nebuchadnezzar? No, God's doing a work on Nebuchadnezzar, and it's starting right now. It hasn't come to consummation yet. Conversion is an event, calling is a process, and the Lord's working on Nebuchadnezzar.

And part of the Lord working on Nebuchadnezzar, you see by his response to the dream interpreter. And what is his response? Well, look if you would in verse 46. Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face and paid homage to Daniel. Now, he hasn't found the right place to pay homage yet, but there is something at work with this man.

He paid homage to Daniel and commanded that an offering and incense be offered up to him. The king answered and said to Daniel, "Truly your God is God of gods and Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery." Then the king gave Daniel high honors and many great gifts and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon.

Daniel made a request of the king, and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon, but Daniel personally remained where? Right in the king's court. He's right there at the side of the king.

Can I just stop there just for a minute? Here's a man, Daniel, through whom God is giving his word, but who will fearlessly—by the way, carefully—notice Daniel's not arrogant. He doesn't come in there and say, "Hey, buddy, King of kings, let me tell you there's a God who put you there and a God who'll take you down." You don't see him arrogant.

He comes in and he acknowledges his title, King of kings. He acknowledges the extent of his rule and his empire, unmatched, even exceeding the Chaldean empire that preceded him and set him up, the Assyrian empire. He's fully aware of all of that, and he is appropriately honoring this king and his achievements and accomplishments.

Then he tells him, "But now, the one that gave you the dreams is the one that gave you that kingdom. And by the way, he's going to take it from you." So there is not only appropriate conduct in his relationship to this king, but there's also great courage as he speaks the word of God to him.

And the result is, when God's word comes to Nebuchadnezzar, while at first we see him paying homage to Daniel, but even in that homage to Daniel, he's recognizing that there is someone behind Daniel, the revealer of truth, the revealer of mysteries, and the Lord over all kings and kingdoms.

Now, why do I bring that out? Brothers and sisters, you're living in a world of broken people with broken hearts, and they desperately need you to compassionately but courageously bring God's word to them. Now, I'm not going to tell you they're all going to be like Nebuchadnezzar and start responding, because for some it'll be death unto death, but there will be many like Nebuchadnezzar that are life unto life.

And yes, I know we live in an age that says there's no absolute truth. "I want to have my truth and your truth," and then you come with the word of God to say it's absolute truth and it is the truth. But folks, there are people that are hurting so much, and when God's word is appropriately delivered in terms of who you are, why God made you, what God has done to enter into this world to save you, and what God now calls you to, it is amazing how people like Nebuchadnezzar will start responding to us. But we must speak the word of God courageously and compassionately, just like Daniel.

Well now, what is it that we begin to see? Well, let me just kind of go to some life takeaways on this, in this man that is now set up in this kingdom. Let me just give you some things. The first thing is this: Jesus is going to refer to this dream and also in Daniel 7. This same vision is going to be given in substance but with different symbols.

Instead of one statue with four sections to it, we're going to hear about four beasts and then ten horns. We're going to see that in Daniel chapter 7. And by the way, we're going to run through a little bit later and we're going to go up to Revelation 17 and Revelation 19, which is calling upon this text. These ten toes are going to show up as ten horns and ten kings and all of that. So we're going to trace all of that out.

But Jesus will also refer to this a couple of times in Matthew chapter 24. And one of the things that he'll refer to this dream and the Daniel 7 dream as the times of the Gentiles, the history of the Gentiles, the kingdoms of this world—not the kingdom of his covenant people, but the kingdoms of this world. This will be called the times of the Gentiles.

Secondly, in this passage, we are given the kingdoms of this age. We're given a broad scope. Now, it's not an in-depth study, but a broad scope of the kingdoms of this age. And what are some things that we have learned about it? Well, the first one is the Babylonian Empire. The Babylonian Empire is the empire of Nebuchadnezzar, which by the way, would also assume that empire that he came out of, the Assyrian Empire.

By the way, even the pictures of it, the symbol of it, is its value of gold and its amassing of great treasures of gold. And so appropriately, it's called a kingdom of gold. That's the Babylonian Empire. That empire will be replaced by an empire of inferior quality but greater strength. And so the gold will be replaced by silver. And that empire will have two parts to it, two arms, and that will be the Medo-Persian Empire. That's the one that will replace it.

And then there will come after that another empire of greater strength. In fact, there are even images to this day of the Greek soldier and his amazing exploits, particularly in the defeat of the Medo-Persians. When we see the pictures of them in the paintings that have survived and the various mosaics, the Greek soldier has the bronze helmet, a bronze breastplate. They even had bronze swords, brass swords that they fought with.

And so this Greek Empire of somewhat inferior quality—as you move from gold to silver to bronze—but of greater strength shall then take over the Medo-Persian Empire. Now, we know who that man was; it was Alexander, even having a city as he moved out, dying in his youth of disappointment as well as malaria and other things, perhaps even what we would call STDs, sexually transmitted diseases.

And Alexander, it says that that kingdom—as you see in the text—it said that that kingdom shall rule over all the world. What was one of the titles of Alexander he insisted on? "King of the World." That was his title. That's what he insisted on. And that kingdom spread and spread to the east, to the west, all the way to Egypt. They even built a city down there in commemoration of him, the conquered Alexandria.

So here is that spreading kingdom of the Greek Empire that will replace the Medo-Persian Empire. It will be stronger yet inferior in many ways: in its morality, in its conduct, and in its deportment and other aspects. But here that kingdom is replaced: the Babylonian, the gold, is replaced by the twofold Medo-Persian Empire.

And then the Greek Empire, that after Alexander is divided up also but does not stand. And it will be conquered by that subsequent empire, and that is the Roman Empire characterized by iron. Again, even greater metallic strength, but again of inferior quality and worth.

So that now you have the Babylonian Empire, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, the Roman Empire, and then that Roman Empire eventually is pictured not of iron any longer, but now clay and of iron, brittleness and some strength. And it then disseminates into not simply two parts, two feet, but ten toes.

What does that refer to? Well, believe me, the commentators are all over the place with this one. The two aspects of it are very clear. It divides, of course, into the Roman Empire from Rome and the Roman Empire that was divided into Constantinople. And so again, history is pre-written for us, the division of the Roman Empire.

Now, what are the ten kingdoms? Well, there are many that will say, well, that will ultimately be replaced, and some people would say the ten kingdoms represents the Roman Catholic Church. Some would say it represents the attempt to reclaim the Roman Empire in what would later be called the Holy Roman Empire.

And of course, there was great speculation when I was the age of some of these college students about the European Common Market would be the tenfold—the only problem is there's a lot more than ten countries in the European Common Market now, so I don't think that's it either.

What is this? What are these ten toes that exist? Well, personally, I would retreat to the symbolic use of ten, and the symbolic use of ten is one of completion. And that is basically the dominant governments of the world have flowed from the Roman system, and they have had different aspects of strength and brittleness.

It is subsuming all of the governments that have flowed from that initial Roman experiment that was both one of military strength, economic power, technology, and democratic processes and representative government and all of those things that started to break out of it. And I think the ten is merely symbolic. In other words, I'm not searching around for a ten-nation confederation that would be the testimony of that. I think it refers to all of the governments from Rome forward that have basically taken their cues from its dominant model that it has issued forth throughout the world and continues to expand and influence the governments of this age.

It is of mixed value. It has strength and it's depicted with the terrible thing that could happen, and that is God's people intermarrying with those that aren't God's people. The mixed marriage has nothing to do with racial mixed marriage; it has to do with the marrying outside of the covenant relationships.

And so there is this constant marriage that is taking place in these governments where there is the blessing of God's people but then there is the intermingling and eventually the devolution of every government because of its immorality and its ungodliness that decays it from the inside out, just like the Roman Empire itself.

And so that continually happens. And so we constantly have all of these governments from the Roman Empire on that rise up, they have strength, and then they begin to dissipate. And they usually dissipate by decay, moral decay from the inside out. And almost all of them last 150 to 300 years, and then they begin to decay in and of themselves.

Now, interestingly, these governments also: the Babylonian Empire will last about 80 to 100 years. The Medo-Persian Empire will last about 150 to 200 years. The Greek Empire will last about 200 to 220 years. The Roman Empire will last for 500 years. But then it will continue with various types of governments that have morphed from it up and throughout Europe and then spreading throughout all of the world after that. These that represent the marriage of weakness and strength with clay that comes from the earth and the strength of iron that's there as well.

So, what do we learn about the kingdoms of this age or the kingdoms of man? Well, here's a couple of things that the image teaches you. One is that each kingdom has a sense of descending value: gold, silver, bronze, iron. There is descending value.

Secondly, the second thing that you see is descending strength. That while value goes down as you work down the statue, actually strength increase. Gold is strong, but is pretty malleable. Silver is stronger than gold. Bronze stronger. So the might of these kingdoms increase. Their strength of might economically and militarily increase until you get to the Roman, the iron legions of Rome, and that they were the strongest of all.

But even they, with the presence of evil, began to dissipate. And those kingdoms that come after them with the clay and the metal. The fourth thing that you see is descending weight. The gold is heavier than the silver, the silver's heavier than the bronze, and the bronze then to the iron, and then the iron to the clay and the iron mixed.

And so you've got this top-heavy statue that cannot stand on its own. Its very strengths become its weaknesses. And then you have descending unity to increasing disunity. The head, the Babylonian Empire unified, replaced by the Medo-Persian Empire divided into Medo-Persian, replaced by the Greek Empire, which after Alexander will be divided ultimately into four, and it won't stand because of its disunity.

And then the Roman Empire, which eventually will be destroyed and it will morph into two parts, the eastern and western Roman Empire. And then it will also continue to morph beyond that from the two feet to the ten toes itself: descending unity to disunity. While there's strength on the one hand, there is also weakness of being top-heavy and disunity and ultimately destructive.

Now, just one more thing to walk through. What about these kingdoms in conflict? Because there was another kingdom that was also instituted, and that is the kingdom of God that is pictured with the stone cut from the mountain that becomes a huge mountain. These kingdoms are in conflict with each other.

And you live a life in which your life is in both kingdoms. I am in a kingdom of this world. I live in a government called the United States of America that has been greatly impacted by the kingdom of God for which I am grateful, but it is part of that statue. It is part, I believe, of those ten toes that are there. It is part of that.

I also live in the kingdom of God as a believer. And in this kingdom of God that will last, I have certain responsibilities that impact and bring strength to the kingdom of this world as the kingdom of God is at work, but will also be used ultimately to bring the kingdoms of this world that stand ultimately in rebellion against God. And I even see that in my own lifetime in this nation.

I labor for the impact of the kingdom of God in conversion work in the kingdoms of this world, but I also know that ultimately the kingdoms of this age will not sign any peace treaties with the kingdom of God. In finality, they will all stand in rebellion against it.

The second thing is the history. History, what am I learning from this? History is the handmaiden of God's sovereign purposes. History is merely revealing what God has decreed and determined through the choices and causes of humanity in its rebellion against the Lord. History is the servant of a sovereign God.

The third thing that I'm learning from this is the stone. Now, when you see that stone, you got to look backwards and you got to look forwards. Why do you look backwards and why do you look forwards? Folks, this imagery is very clear. This imagery, when you look backwards, is very clear imagery.

When Daniel gave this interpretation, Nebuchadnezzar might not have seen it, but any Jew that heard this interpretation would immediately go back to what event? A stone that took down a giant with a supernatural hand of God. They would immediately remember a small king by the name of David raised up by the Lord and in his smallness, protected by the Lord, a stone was sent forth and took a giant down.

And then it's looking forward. The stone cut from what mountain? Mount Calvary. The stone is Christ the King. That stone that comes from Mount Calvary will destroy the kingdoms of this world as the kingdom of God is established.

And the huge statue not only continues to descend with its claims of strength but its intrinsic weaknesses. That statue will be replaced. It is temporal. That massive statue is temporal, but it will be replaced by a huge mountain. From Mount Calvary came a stone. That rock is Jesus.

And he sets his kingdom, and it will grow into a huge Mount Zion that is forever, the dwelling place of God and his people. That is precisely what he's looking at. This stone looking back—yes, there was that David, there was a picture of one who was going to be sent, another King, in humiliation. A stone uncut, a virgin birth, a King is going to come without human hands. And that King will be established in what day? In the day of that Roman Empire.

And it will strike right then, and it will ultimately, finally crush every vestige of the kingdoms of this world raised up against the glory and majesty of the kingdom of God. The huge statue is temporary and destructible. It's overly heavy from top to bottom. It is descending in value, and its strengths finally morph into weaknesses because of its ungodliness and its evil.

And it will be destroyed by that stone that will come from a mountain and establish a huge mountain that is eternal and unbreakable. Now folks, we're going to keep looking at this, so hang with me. We're going to go to Daniel 7, we're going to go to Revelation 17, we're going to go to Revelation chapter 19. We're going to move through all of those things and we'll be looking through that in the future, taking a further look at how this is developed.

But the final thing I want to say is that what this is giving us a picture of is the first advent of Jesus when the stone is cut from the mountain, and anticipating the second advent of Jesus. That huge statue, the stone hits it at the first advent of Jesus, and then it crumbles it ultimately and finally.

The kingdoms of this world have been defeated with the victory of Christ on the cross, but not yet has it been consummated. It'll be consummated when Christ returns. And the statues are ground up and blown away. What does Jesus talk about that day? "They'll be like the chaff that the wind drives away." He's using the language from this at his second advent, the chaff that is driven away, and then comes the mountain of God that stands forever. That mountain is one that is unshakable and eternal. That huge mountain replaces that huge statue because of the stone, the rock, Jesus.

Well, we'll be taking further look at this moving ahead. But what is absolutely amazing is all of this is written before it ever occurred in the days of the Babylonian Empire, anticipating what will yet occur.

Announcer (Male): You're listening to InPerspective featuring the teaching of Dr. Harry L. Reeder. Our current sermon series: Daniel's Memorable Memoirs and Message. For additional teaching by Dr. Reeder, visit inperspective.org.

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And again, if you would like to receive this month's free gift offer, the series "Is the Bible Reliable?", visit us at inperspective.org. The enemies of Daniel's three friends meant to accuse them of evil before the king. Join us again next time as Dr. Reeder examines how these accusations were actually a testimony of their unswerving faithfulness and steadfast commitment to the true and living God. That's next time as we turn back to the scriptures to put life in biblical perspective.