An Overview of Earthly Kingdoms

Transcript

GR1902
11/16/2014
An Overview of Earthly Kingdoms
Daniel 2:1-49
Gil Rugh
Alright we are going to the book of Daniel, the book of Daniel and the second chapter. The man Daniel gives his name to the book that bears his name, the book of Daniel.

We looked at chapter one which gave us an overview of this situation. He was carried away from his homeland, Israel when the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in 605 B.C. Remember the first of three times that Nebuchadnezzar will come up and deal with Jerusalem, 605, 597 and 586 so he is going to have a long reign.

We start out with him being carried away to Babylon in the captivity of 605. The chapter concluded in verse 21: “Daniel continued until the first year of Cyrus, the King” which was 539 B.C. So he’s been in Babylon for what, 66 years and he is not done. That just tells you that he continued on through the entire Babylonian rule from Nebuchadnezzar conquering it in 605 until its fall to the Persians, the Medo-Persian Empire under Cyrus in 539 but in chapter 10 we will see that in the third year of Cyrus, Daniel is still carrying on a ministry so he obviously carried the ministry on well into his eighties assuming he was a teenager when he was carried away at first.

He has demonstrated his commitment to be faithful to God and God has honored that along with his three friends we know best as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They have been blessed of God for their faithfulness and they have passed the test of their three year training and excelled above the others.

When you come into chapter 2 we pick up in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. We noted that you get a year’s variation because of the different ways that the Jews and the Babylonians figured the reign. In other words the Babylonians might not count the ascension year, the first year, that’s his ascension year. Then you start year one whereas the other way would be to count it from the beginning, that’s year one; so a variation. We are not going into the details on that but you can pick up any of the commentaries and they will give you an explanation and usually a chart.

So we pick up in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar and Nebuchadnezzar had dreams. Nebuchadnezzar is the king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. There will be other kings. We looked at a chart of those but he reigns for 43 years and the other kings are rather minor. He dominates that Neo-Babylonian Empire. The second year of his reign he had dreams. His spirit was troubled, his sleep left him. He’s having these dreams and he is a pagan and he sees significance in the dreams and so he calls the wise men, the magicians, the conjurers, the sorcerers, this collection of men who were able to function in a variety of ways but to give the king answers beyond what normal people could do. They were able to delve into the spirit world, some of them. They used their magical formulas and other things. Some of them were just noted for their wisdom. That would have been like Daniel.

So they came in and stood before the king. They are summoned before the king, maybe not every one of them but the leaders of the individual groups, perhaps, the magicians, conjurers, sorcerers, Chaldeans. Chaldeans can be a general name of a Babylonian but it is also a name for special class of the wise men in Babylon. So he calls these individuals, again maybe not every one of them but the representatives of each of these classes and they came in and stood before the king and he said, “I had a dream and my spirit is anxious to understand the dream.” “Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic” and that note there is significant because from this point in Daniel through chapter 7 Daniel is written in Aramaic. The rest of the book is basically written in Hebrew. The reason usually given is the subject matter in these chapters is particularly applicable to the Gentiles and Aramaic would have been the common language of discourse so the rest of the book through chapter 7 will be in Aramaic.

“And they said to him ‘O king, live forever, tell the dream to your servants and we will declare the interpretation.’” They are fully confident, ‘tell us the dream. We will give you the interpretation.’ Nebuchadnezzar is a very wise and clever man. He replied to the Chaldeans, “The command from me is firm.” There is no wiggle room here. It is exactly as I told you. You tell me the dream and if you don’t make known to me the dream in its interpretation you will be torn limb from limb and your houses will be made a rubbish heap.” Don’t you like this gentle introduction? I would like you to tell me the dream. No, there is no debate here and Nebuchadnezzar means this literally. And the history of the time, we have examples of one of the ways that people were killed was they were torn limb from limb, just pulled apart and to show the dishonor to them, their houses will be made a garbage heap. The alternative, “if you declare to me the dream and its interpretation you will get gifts, rewards, and honor. Therefore declare to me the dream and its interpretation. They answered a second time and said, ‘let the king tell the dream to his servants. We will declare the interpretation.’ The king replied, ‘I know for certain that you are bargaining for time.’” The solution to this is clear. Nebuchadnezzar knows if I tell you the dream how will I know what you tell me the interpretation is as to whether it’s true or not? If you are able to delve into the spirit world and discern this I assume you could discern what the dream was itself; so very clever.

Verse 9: “If you do not make the dream known to me, there is only one decree for you for you have agreed together to speak lying and corrupt words before me until the situation is changed.” In other words you are trying to buy time and you know with time Nebuchadnezzar will settle down. Other things will come up in the kingdom and we will move on. Nebuchadnezzar says there is no time. Verse 10: “The Chaldeans answered the king and said, ‘There is not a man on earth who could declare the matter for the king;’” important statement. They acknowledge their absolute inability. They have no contact with the higher power as they might have talked about it as one was truly a god. They would not have been monotheistic but they don’t have any contact outside the human realm. “The king, inasmuch as no king or ruler has ever asked anything like this of any magician, conjurer or Chaldean.” That tells you what they say the power has always been, extremely limited to making up answers. “Moreover, the thing which the king demands is difficult, and there is no one else who could declare it to the king except gods, whose dwelling place is not with mortal flesh.” It would take one of the gods to give the answer. So Nebuchadnezzar is a man of short temper. He’s a great king, he’s a great ruler, and he’s a great builder in Babylon. When you get books on Babylon you can see the pictures of the ruins there. So a mighty king but short tempered so he gave orders: “Destroy all the wise men of Babylon.” Just clean house and start over. None of you are any good so what do I need you for? “The decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they looked for Daniel and his friends to kill them.” Not that they are looking specifically just for them but a reminder here, they are caught up in these events because they are of the class of the wise men. It doesn’t mean that they were using these magical things and were diviners but they were of the class of wise men and had demonstrated great wisdom but they have to die. There are no exceptions given here.

Verse 14: “Then Daniel replied with discretion and discernment to Arioch.” I have to keep reminding myself when I read Daniel here is a young man estimated usually around 15 years of age because of the length of the ministry he has. Even if he is 15 he is going to be ministering close to 90 years of age so he’s a young man. Even if you would say he’s a few years older than that and here under this kind of pressure. We saw the pressure in chapter 1 to not be faithful to God to the requirements placed upon him as a Jew to eat only what was allowed within the Levitical commandments. And now here he’s under the threat of death. He doesn’t panic, he doesn’t go to pieces. He doesn’t lose it. “He replied with discretion and discernment to Arioch, the captain of the king’s body guard, who had gone forth to slay the wise men” and probably what is happening here is there is a round-up going on rather than just going out and slaying this wise man, this wise man. You gather them together. That seems to be the setting.

“He said to Arioch, the king’s commander, ‘For what reason is the decree from the king so urgent?’” You know there is no disrespect here. He honors the king. He doesn’t say well Nebuchadnezzar is a hothead. There is no reason for him to do such a rash thing or something like that, no, he just asked. Why is this such an urgent matter?

Arioch informed Daniel and Daniel went in and requested of the king that he would give him time in order that he might declare the interpretation to the king. He asked for time. Evidently Arioch, the way the thing flows it doesn’t mean he necessarily went in before Nebuchadnezzar because later Arioch is going to take credit for finding the man and introducing him again to Nebuchadnezzar. But at any rate he asked for time and there is time because they are gathering them up, the wise men so God again works to give Daniel favor with Arioch and he is willing to allow him some time because you know, he’s got time to gather all the wise men and prepare the execution.

“Then Daniel went to his house and informed his friends, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah about the matter, so that they might request compassion from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his friends would not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.” It’s remarkable. Just ask the leader, Arioch, representing Nebuchadnezzar and carrying out his degree if he would give us a little bit of time. I think I can give the interpretation, what the king is looking for. And then he goes and tells his friend, let’s go to prayer. You see his absolute confidence. I mean this is a man that has been uprooted from his family, his homeland, carried away in God’s judgment on Babylon, by Babylon on Jerusalem and on the southern kingdom of Israel. It has not shaken his faith in God. Has not made him bitter, not made him to doubt God and the sin of the nation has not frustrated God’s plan for Daniel and his three friends. We often say someone else’s sin does not frustrate God’s plan for you. We need to remind ourselves of that. Daniel is exactly where God intended him to be in His perfect plan for Daniel and his three friends. The tragedy of the destruction brought upon the southern kingdom and their conquering, that is a terrible judgment. That doesn’t mean that God’s plan for Daniel is frustrated. Now I have been carried away from my homeland and uprooted. Now I am in the service of a pagan king in a foreign land and yes, I am exactly where God intends me to be to use me as He wants to use me; remarkable maturity for these young men.

Verse 19, the men go to prayer and we talked about prayer this morning. And we go to God and He gives answers. It wasn’t a matter of Arioch comes to the house and God had already told Daniel, Arioch will come to the house. Here is what you say and here’s the interpretation. God could do that and on occasion He might but here it’s the prayer of these four men.

“Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a night vision.” So God gives him a vision and Daniel sees the same thing that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream and then he tells him what it all means. “Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven,” and a great prayer of Daniel here. Daniel said, “Let the name of God be blessed forever and ever, for wisdom and power belong to Him. It is He who changes the times and the epochs, He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men and knowledge to men of understanding. It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with Him. To You, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for You have given me wisdom and power; even now You have made known to me what we requested of You. You have made known to us the king’s matter.” What a solid unshakeable faith in God. You are the one who changes times and epochs. Is this disaster that has come upon my people, our nation, something that was out of Your plan? No, He changes times and epochs. He removes kings and establishes kings. If I really believe that you know you hear of Christians today they talk about an election or what’s going on with the leaders of the country, you don’t see Daniel’s attitude. Sometimes it is a disdain and almost a hatred and a frustration and as though everything is going to pot. For Israel everything has gone to pot, destruction, the independence of the nation is over. The times of the Gentiles has begun and they continue down to this day the magnitude of this disaster. Daniel says he changes the times and epochs. He removes kings and establishes kings. Would we have that full confidence if we were carried away by a foreign power and when we spend our nights weeping and wailing and in despair and what’s going to happen? God is sovereign and Daniel is exactly where God intended him to be in His plan. Everything is good.

“Therefore, Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon; he spoke to him as follows: ‘Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon! Take me into the king’s presence and I will declare the interpretation to the king.’” Daniel is gracious. You might think he and his three friends would say, “Go ahead, kill the rest of those men they are phonies anyway.” No, he is gracious and intervenes on behalf of the rest of the wise men.

God had given Arioch a confidence in Daniel to take Daniel into the king and say, “I have found the man, (taking some credit) who can give you your dream and its interpretation.” To have Daniel go in there and fumble it would not only be disaster for Daniel, it would be disaster for Arioch so Arioch hurriedly brought Daniel into the king’s presence. I mean he can’t drag this out indefinitely. He’s gathering up the people and Nebuchadnezzar calls him and asks him why isn’t it done, he’s in trouble. Remember in chapter 1 the man in charge of the food for Daniel and his friends was afraid, I will lose my head if the king sees you are not looking healthy and find out I didn’t give you the food he specified. So here, “Arioch hurriedly brought Daniel into the king’s presence” spoke to his as follows: “I have found a man from among the exiles from Judah who can make the interpretation known to the king.” And of course with that is obviously first he is going to tell the dream because you couldn’t give the interpretation if you didn’t know the dream. “Daniel answered before the king and said, ‘as for the mystery about which the king has inquired, neither wise men, conjurers, magician, diviners are able to declare it to the king.’” Let’s settle this once and for all. “No mere man in his own wisdom or powers can do what you’ve asked. However, there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries and He has made known to king Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the latter days.” He’s direct. The answer that you are looking for must come from the God in heaven. There is a God in heaven. He’s not one of the multitudes of gods that you have but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries and He has made known to Nebuchadnezzar what is going to happen in the later days.

You see God here working in and through a pagan, godless unbeliever and revealing to him truth, of course truth he can’t grasp and understand and so “let me tell you, Nebuchadnezzar” can you imagine the setting here? Here you’ve got this teenage young man who has just come out of his training and now he says to Nebuchadnezzar “This was your dream and the visions” and here there’s Nebuchadnezzar on his throne with his entourage all there and Daniel stands and says, “Here’s your dream, this was what you dreamed while on your bed,” amazing. “As for you, O king, while on your bed your thoughts turned to what would take place in the future.”

Don’t you love how specific God is? He not only tells the dream He tells him what Nebuchadnezzar was thinking before he went to sleep. Nebuchadnezzar was wondering about the future. He had recently succeeded his father, a couple of years have gone by. He sees the empire that he is ruling over and he wonders, where will this all go? What will be the end of all this? I mean he knows the Babylonians replaced the previous empire which replaced the previous empire and at the battle of Carchemish in 605 that was Nebuchadnezzar who finally brought defeat to the Egyptians and the final remnant to the Assyrians. He knows empires come and go. What will happen in the later days? We get to the end of all these things. “And he who reveals mysteries has made known to you what will take place.” Here’s the answer to the question you had in your mind.

“But as for me” and Daniel before we go further let’s make clear, I am not some great exceptional person. “As for me this mystery has not been revealed to me for any wisdom residing in me more than any other living man. I am just another man. I am not an exceptional man.” He may have more wisdom than others but he is just a human being with human limitations. “But for the purpose of making known the interpretation to the king that you may understand the thoughts f your mind” here we go. He’s already told them verse 28 “There’s a God in heaven who reveals mysteries and He has made known. I am just here to tell you what the God of heaven has made known.”

“You O, king were looking and behold there was a single great statue; that status which was large and of extraordinary splendor was standing in front of you.” Its appearance was awesome. What Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream was this spectacular statue of a man with overwhelming splendor. Its appearance was awesome. “The head of that statue was made of fine gold; its breast and arms of silver; its belly and its thighs of bronze; its legs of iron; its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You continued looking until the stone was cut out without hands and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like the chaff from the summer threshing floors. 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.” That was quite a dream. No wonder Nebuchadnezzar thought, “This is something of importance.”

Well now you’ve told the dream. You know Nebuchadnezzar is ready for the interpretation because that’s exactly what he dreamed. That was the dream. Now we will tell its interpretation and we are going to look at that.

Before we do would you put up the chart of the resurrections? We are in the Old Testament here. Remember Old Testament prophecy. It comes up to the first coming of Christ marked by the cross. Old Testament prophecy comes up to this point, breaks off and resumes at this point, the seven years of Daniel, the seventy weeks of Daniel which we will talk about in chapter 9. So that is why sometimes we put a parenthesis here, remember. So if you were talking about Old Testament prophecy you would just move the events right after this first stage, the rapture back here because the Old Testament prophets saw the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ together. Remember I Peter? Peter wrote and said the prophets couldn’t understand how the Messiah could suffer and die and how He could rule and reign in glory because the Old Testament prophecies didn’t reveal that there were two separate, distinct comings of the Messiah to the earth. It talked about it as though it all happened together. He’s going to suffer and die. He’s going to rule and reign. How can this all be?

Now to us it is clear because New Testament revelation spreads it out and reveals that there is some 2000 years between the 1st and 2nd coming of Christ as we look at it. So keep that in mind. This period of time in here is not in Old Testament prophecy. It will not be in the book of Daniel. There is some material out now that sees a fulfillment of these things in here. There are a variety of views on that but we will talk about that but keep that in mind; that won’t change. That helps keep our interpretation in perspective.

Alright, we will look at the interpretation before the king. “You, O king are the king of kings to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength, the glory. Wherever the sons of men dwell or the beasts of the field, or the birds of the sky, He has given them into your hand; caused you to rule over them. You are the head of gold,” the most precious metal, not the strongest metal but the most precious. This is signifying something of I don’t want to call it the purity of Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom because of misunderstanding but as far as a king and a kingdom there is a purity of reign, not a purity of character. He is a godless man and other kings will be godless but the authority he wields and the extent of it over not only men but beasts. The statement is not said of anyone until we go back to Adam. That doesn’t mean now that the curse was lifted but he asserted a power and a strength of reign that the other kingdoms won’t attain to. So he is the head of gold of the Babylonian Empire.

You can put up the image and you can see here. We just took this out of I believe it is from the Rose Publication where they also do a CD. You can buy the book with the pictures in and there are some others in Sound Words that represent this but this gives you the idea. It may not be quite as beautiful as Nebuchadnezzar saw it but you see the parts; the head of gold, Babylon from 605 to 539. That is the extent. 43 of those years Nebuchadnezzar is the king. That was the height of that empire. “You are the head of gold (verse 39) after that will arise another kingdom inferior to you.” That will be Greece, Medo-Persia. He doesn’t mention the metal but that was mentioned earlier in verse 32, “Its breast and arms of silver.” That kingdom that arises that is inferior would be the Medo-Persian Empire and it goes from 539 to 332 B.C. And there you see it is inferior. It did not have the purity of reign so to speak; the centralized control and all that goes with that. That was the Medo-Persian Empire, Persia the dominant element but the Meads and the Median people were part of that.

Then you come to the third empire and the third kingdom of bronze will rule over all the earth and we come to Greece and you see the dates there, 332 to 63.

Then verse 40, “There will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron.” Well, would you rather have iron or gold? You know you have a deteriorating quality in the metal as far as their value but an increasing of strength. If you were going to have a sword fight you would rather have an iron sword than a gold sword. The gold sword would be prettier but once it clashed with the iron sword it would be of little use. You see the quality of the kingdom is deteriorating. Some of that see in these kingdoms a moral decline as well. But regardless, there is the decline although there is an increase in strength.

The fourth kingdom will be as strong as iron and it’s the fourth kingdom that gets the elaboration because it goes from verse 40 to verse 43. It’s strong as iron. “Inasmuch as iron crushes and shatters all things. Like iron breaks in pieces it will crush and break all these in pieces. You saw the feet and toes partly of potter’s clay, partly of iron. It will be a divided kingdom, have in it the toughness of iron and inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with the clay. The toes and the feet were partly or iron, partly of pottery. Some of the kingdom will be strong. Part of it will be brittle. In that you saw the iron mixed with common clay they will combine with one another and the seed of men. They will not adhere to one another even as iron does not adhere to pottery.” So you see he belabors this kingdom and particularly he stresses verses 41, 42, and 43, the feet and the toes that are part of iron and part of clay and that mixture and the strength of it but the weakness of it.

Then verse 44: “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed. That kingdom will not be left for another people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms but it will itself endure forever. Inasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands. It crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold. The great God has made known to the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true. Its interpretation is trustworthy.” You see where it brings us to - verse 44 and 45 brings us to the kingdom of Christ.

So here you have an overview of the kingdoms from Babylon down to the establishing of the kingdom of Christ. So we come to the beginnings of the times of the Gentiles to the end of the times of the Gentiles. And when Gentiles rule to the time when Christ, the Messiah will come and set up the kingdom. It will never be destroyed. It is a kingdom cut without hands. It does not depend on human power. Jesus told Pilate, remember, in their interview, “My kingdom is not of this world, otherwise my servants would fight.” When He comes He comes with the armies of heaven in Revelation 19 to destroy the armies of the world.

Now if you don’t see the gap in Old Testament prophecy that we pointed out, incidentally 63 when they start the Roman Empire there is when Pompeii did defeat Jerusalem and establish Roman rule. If you don’t recognize this gap between the cross and the start of the seven year tribulation, this first stage is not in Old Testament prophecy either, obviously. It is the climax of the Church Age which began in Acts 2 so you end up moving this all back. That is where you get those who say we are in the kingdom now because they say, “Well, this iron and clay they try to identity the toes which are ten, not mentioned here but further defined later in Daniel. We will say something about that in a moment. They say they were different Roman Emperors that ruled with weakness but Christ established a spiritual kingdom that is more powerful than earthly kingdoms at His first coming and so you make the kingdom a non-physical literal kingdom and so we are in the kingdom now and Christ is ruling. That’s not so. We need to be careful about our terminology. We pick up these things and we bring confusion. All these kingdoms are earthly kingdoms that rule on the earth that are destroyed. Have you seen the news at all this week? The kingdoms of this world have not been crushed and destroyed and blown away. That is just not true so you just make this transition into non-literal interpretation of prophecy. You are off the track and you will only get more off the track because then people try to say the church is the kingdom and the church is to be doing kingdom work and what does that mean? We are going to deal with poverty, we are going to deal with disease and the church is off track and it no longer becomes a vehicle for proclaiming truth; so important that we have this together.

You will note the belly and thighs are of bronze. The point is not the divisions in the man here in this chapter. I say that because some say “Well because the legs are of iron that pictures the division of the Roman Empire that you know divided into the East and the West.” I don’t think that is so because the point here is not on events that take place during the Church Age. It is not part of the prophecy.

What is of importance, he’s not talking about how Greece will be divided into two parts, we know Greece will divide into four parts but when he says, “The belly and the thighs,” the point is not to “well we should find some significance now we have two upper parts of the leg.” No, the point is the metal representing the empire. I think the legs of iron simply represent the Roman Empire. If you are going to have the statue of the man it has to have parts. Now certain parts will become significant. The toes are going to be significant. It doesn’t say “Ten toes” and so some who do not take a literal view of prophecy say you know, we are not talking about ten here but we get to chapter 7 Daniel will himself be given a vision, different images but the same information and there more details are given but what is given in Daniel here is an overview of how it will go from Babylon down to the establishing of the ultimate final kingdom ruled over by the Jewish Messiah. Daniel doesn’t go into that here. For Nebuchadnezzar this is just an overview of the empires of the world to the climactic empire. Babylon is not the climactic empire. The rule of Christ, the Messiah is.

Turn over to Daniel, chapter 7. You see here Daniel has a vision at night and verse 1 tells you, now we are in the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon. “Daniel saw a dream.” You know we will put him in his context when we get here, but he has dreams and visions.

Verse 3: He saw “four great beasts coming up from the sea, different from one another.” And these four beasts are going to picture the same thing that the parts of this image portrayed. Now Daniel sees them from God’s perspective, these wild, ravenous beasts. Nebuchadnezzar saw the kingdoms of the world from a more human perspective of their glory and beauty. Daniel sees it in something more of their character. Four great beasts, the first is a lion, then the second beast, verse 5: “Resembling a bear.” Verse 6: “After this I kept looking, and behold, another one, like a leopard” and then we get into the details. You see there is more details given here in each of these. Then verse 7: “I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong; it had large iron teeth.” That connects to the fourth empire, the empire characterized by iron that crushes and destroys. Now here this fourth beast is dreadful and terrifying. Its pictured its teeth are iron. It can crush and bite and devour and destroy. And the end of verse 7: “It had ten horns.” So you note here, no talk about a division as we are getting into more detail here of the Roman Empire or this fourth empire into two parts. We move immediately to the ten horns because that will carry us down to the final form of the Roman Empire because remember the iron is still there. So the Roman Empire, the peoples that made up that Roman Empire, key elements of that empire, had not gone out of existence even though it doesn’t exist during this Church Age as a viable empire as it did when Rome ruled. It had ten horns.

So since we have the same picture we know the ten toes on the image mixed of iron and clay were literally ten toes because here they are ten horns and then further information. “While looking at the horns another horn, a little one came up” and displaced three of them “And then I kept looking” and we are carried to the kingdom.

Verse 13: “I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away; and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed.”

You come back to Daniel 2. Keep a place in Daniel 7. So when you read verse 44: “And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom.” “Those kingdoms” refers to the toes and the feet of verse 42. How we know that when you come back to chapter 7 Daniel’s real interest he says in verse 15: “He was distressed” and concerned. Verse 17: “These great beasts, which are four in number.” He asks the angel, “What does it mean?” So these great beasts are four in number, four kings, a king and a kingdom are interchangeable. Most everybody recognizes that and acknowledges that. We will comment on this. So there are four kings or kingdoms. A king represents a kingdom. “But the saints of the highest one will receive the kingdom.” So you know you are only dealing with four kingdoms in that sense. Now that’s why this final ten kings are a part of the fourth kingdom, the iron continues. “The saints of the Highest One will receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever.” There is the summary. The four beasts are four kingdoms; where the four different meadows are four kingdoms. Now that last kingdom is going to have different phases but it’s still the same kingdom in a weakened form; iron mixed with clay, remember, but the climax then will be the saints will receive a kingdom and possess the kingdom forever because their Savior, their Lord, their Messiah, their King is the One to reign and we will reign with Him.

Daniel wants to know more about the fourth beast and so he will get an explanation. He asked to know the exact meaning of the fourth beast, different from all the others, dreadful, its teeth of iron, bronze, crushed, trampled. The meaning of the ten horns which were on its head and the other horn which came up and the three which fell before him, that horn which had eyes, this culminating horn which will be the anti-christ, the final ruler or what we call the revived Roman Empire and he’s victorious over the saints until the Ancient of Days came and judgment was passed.

So verse 23: “The fourth beast will be a fourth kingdom on the earth and will crush all the others. As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings will arise. Another will arise after them. He will be different from the previous ones. He will subdue three kings or kingdoms.” And then he will speak out against the most high; attack the saints and they will be given into his hand for a time, times and a half time.

The book of Revelation will help with that as well as the rest of the book of Daniel. Times, two times and a half time really is another way of referring to three and one half years, the last half of the seven year, seventieth week of Daniel but the culmination will be after that time two times and a half time that sovereignty, dominion, and greatness of all the kings under the whole heaven will be given to the people and the saints of the Highest One. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom. The dominions will serve Him and obey Him.

Come over to the book of Revelation, chapter 17, Revelation 17. John giving the fullest revelation of last things and gives a clear structure of things for us in chapter 17 of Revelation. You know with the issues of the rise of Muslims in our day. There is a variety of views coming up in prophecy. Some relate to this fourth kingdom. Another one I was reading is that the woman riding the beast is Islam and the wine that the nations of the earth drink are oil and tying it all together. I think we need to be careful about reading into these Scriptures current events that seem interesting but I think they are off track.

Alright, we want to just pick up brief interpretation here. Come down to verse 9. “Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains;” verse 3, if you are not familiar, “A woman sitting on a scarlet beast full of blasphemous names having seven heads and ten horns.” That beast has seven heads and ten horns. So here is the mind, verse 9, which has wisdom. “The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits,” skip over that phrase there. “The seven heads are seven mountains and they are seven kings.” The seven heads, seven mountains all represent the same thing. They are seven kings. So literally it is, the seven heads are seven mountains. They are seven kings or kingdoms. A mountain in Old Testament prophecy represents a kingdom. Remember in Daniel 2 the stone cut without hands becomes a great mountain, a kingdom that encompasses the whole earth. So here, you have seven heads are seven mountains which they are seven kings or seven kingdoms.

Five have fallen so now Daniel covered the times of the Gentiles. The revelation of John takes you back before that. So what’s the first empire that Israel as a nation has to deal with? Where were they formed as a nation, in Egypt, the exodus from Egypt becomes a great event in Israel’s history so the first kingdom here, five have fallen. Egypt, what follows Egypt? Assyria which follows Assyria? Babylon, what follows Babylon? Persia which follows Persia? Greece. Those five empires are history as John writes. One is. The sixth one is the empire ruling as John writes which is Rome. The other has not yet come. That would be the ten nations that we saw on the head of the beast, that confederacy, the ten toes of the image.

So five have fallen, one is, that is the sixth, Rome. The seventh is yet to come, that would be the ten toes or the ten horns in chapter 7 and that will be a little, just for a little while because the beast, the little horn that came up among the ten and displaced three, the beast which was and is not is himself also an eighth is one of the seven because he comes out of that seventh form of the kingdom, the ten nation confederacy but he is different enough to be considered an eighth kingdom.

So John gives further detail in breaking it down but you see there really are six kingdoms he deals with because the seventh comes out of Rome and the eighth comes out of the seventh so Rome, the ten nations and the anti-christ all are part of. You could put over that, Rome, the final form. So you see how Scripture progressively repeats and yet says the same thing, gives greater clarity.

Come back to Daniel chapter 2. We will be reiterating when we go into chapter 7 and there will be details given on some of these like Greece in more detail like in chapter 8 of Daniel. We will get details on that empire and we will review some of this again but you see God is sovereign in the affairs of men. He rules in the realm of mankind; His sovereignty over all. I mean you think it’s the might of one empire that caused it to rule but who gave it that might and power and strength? Who put it in that position? Who weakened it? What happened to Assyria?

I was reading a book on the decline of the Assyrian Empire and say well, two things. They became soft and they became degenerate. You know, they just lose interest like we can see. We want to be a major power today, not really. We just want to be left alone, do our own thing, and enjoy our prosperity. Leave us alone. Let the rest of the world fight it out. We just don’t want to be the great power. We don’t want to spend our money on military things. That’s sort of what happened to the empire of the world. You know, you get to the top and then you want to enjoy being at the top and with that I was interested that a non-believer wrote, “Softness and degeneracy.” We don’t have to look very far around to see that.

But who is in charge? Are we frustrated? Are we wringing our hands and saying, “Boy, I can’t wait until the next presidential election. I’m sure glad that these people got it and this person doesn’t and maybe now something can… as though God is sitting up there rooting for one side or the other hoping it goes this way. Who’s in charge? You understand we are exactly on schedule in God’s plan. We are exactly where God has ordained we should be. The nations of the world with all the chaos and you look and say, this is happening and this is happening and this is happening and God has it all under control and that is encouragement to us. And you know what? You and I have been placed here in the plan of God, exactly where He intends for us to be to serve Him, faithfully in this context. Well I don’t want to get side-tracked. That is what the devil does. Oh, we are in the kingdom. We ought to be doing this. Oh, we are in the kingdom. We ought to be doing that. Wait a minute. Now we are listening to men and not the Word of God. It has to be interpreted correctly if it is going to be used properly, so great encouragement.

Sit back and say, “Boy, God is sovereign over the nations!” As I turn on the news there He is moving these people here. They think they are doing it. They are in power. They are bragging about what they doing. We are going to re-establish the Russian Empire and I say well, “God is moving it all along. I don’t have all the details of this particular block of time but I know where it’s going and I know what I am to be doing here and I know what God’s purposes are in this period of time.” We need to be about His business and rejoice that God is taking care of everything, the nations and especially you and I as His children.

Let’s pray together, Thank You Lord for the encouragement of Your Word. How rich it is. How amazing it is. Six hundred years before Your Son came to this earth and You revealed to a pagan king the unfolding of events to the coming of Your Son to rule and reign and revealed that truth to a young man faithful to You, a testimony to Your power and Your sovereignty that the Gentiles who asserted control over Your people, Your nation only did so because it was Your plan and Your purpose. Lord may we be careful to give You the honor, the glory and see Your hand sovereignly at work and Lord may we be faithful as Daniel was in the time You placed us to make the most of our time to serve you in the week before us, amen.