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open your bible to daniel here on wednesday night we're going through the old testament and we are currently in daniel chapter 2.
so i'm going to have you turn there with me please daniel chapter 2 as we get started tonight let's pray father as we dig into your word this evening we pray for your holy spirit to lead us as always lord we are very conscious of our great need of you lord whenever we dig into the scriptures it is you through your spirit who enlightens our hearts
and brings wisdom and we pray that you do that tonight lord as we go through this chapter we ask lord that you would speak to us and give great wisdom be with us we pray father in jesus name amen amen daniel chapter 2 begins by saying in the second year of the reign of nebuchadnezzar
nebuchadnezzar had dreams his spirit was troubled and his sleep left him and then the king commanded that the magicians the enchanters the sorcerers and the chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his dream so they came in and stood before the king i'll stop you there for a moment because it even though it says that he commanded all of his magicians
enchanters sorcerers we know that daniel and his hebrew friends were part of that group they wouldn't have used those terms to describe themselves but they were still considered part of them but it appears that daniel and his friends were not called in in this group to talk to the king about the dream and we'll see that later in the chapter that daniel hears about this later on and inquires as to what's actually happening but i want you to notice how this all plays out so he the king nebuchadnezzar gets all these individuals around him who are supposed to be wise and have these abilities to look into things like dreams and the king verse 3 said to them i had a dream and my spirit is troubled to know the dream then the chaldean said to the king in aramaic o king live forever tell your servants the
dream and will show the interpretation the king answered and said to the chaldeans the word from me is firm if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation you shall be torn limb from limb and your houses shall be laid in ruins now stop there for just a moment please
nebuchadnezzar was many things stupid was not among them he knew that if he told these guys his dream that it wouldn't be all that tough for them to fabricate some reasonably good sounding argument to say well this is what your dream means and this is the interpretation because who's gonna know i mean who would know you know somebody you tell them your dream and somebody goes well i know what that means it means blah who's going to argue and say no that's not what it means so in this interesting sort of a situation nebuchadnezzar says you guys are all wise and have some kind of supernatural insights great wonderful yes i want you to interpret my dream but i'm not going to tell you my dream i want
you to tell me the dream and then tell me what it means yeah well there as you well know i mean how would you like to be in that sort of a situation and as you can well imagine you know they were they were flabbergasted that the king even asked them that sort of a question and that's one of the problems with dreams and interpreting dreams uh i i got to tell you i get notes pretty often from people who tell me they've had dreams and they'll even go into great detail telling me what was in their dream and then they want me to interpret it for them you know and i'm like um yeah that's not what i do i mean i'm a bible teacher but i you know i don't interpret dreams here's the thing um i don't deny that god can give dreams in fact we know or we're told that in these last days the dreams are going to be given to people and they might and they're even going to be on the increase let me show you a passage on the screen from joel chapter 2.
this is one of those prophecies that says it shall come to pass afterward that i will pour out my spirit on all flesh your sons and your daughters shall prophesy your old men shall dream dreams there it is and your young men shall see visions and so these you know you when somebody says i think i've had a dream from the lord you can't just reject it out of hand but here's the thing that we have to remember about dreams when god gives someone a dream he's not going to leave them in question of what the dream means in other words dreams are given by god we see this in the scripture to pass along vital information that he wants them to know and he wants them to understand he doesn't give dreams to confuse people in this particular situation we're going to learn as we go through the chapter that god is going to give the
interpretation in fact the
understanding of the dream and the interpretation to daniel why because he wanted nebuchadnezzar to know the information that the dream conveyed it wasn't meant to be a mystery that just caused him frustration and great confusion so you know when people write to me and they're confused and they're frustrated because they had a dream and they have absolutely no idea what it means i i usually tell them well there's two op there's two possibilities your dream is from the lord or it's from the pizza you had the night before so it's your responsibility to go before the lord and bring it to him and say lord is this from you and if so reveal the un my you know the meaning of this thing so i can have understanding it's god's responsibility you see to convey the meaning of a dream it's not yours and it's not mine but here's the problem when people don't feel like they've gotten anything from the lord they start to do in their own interpretation they start to kind of figure well i think this thing there means and that's let me tell you something that is a very slippery slope because we start coming up with our own ideas and as far as i'm concerned any dream that is unclear or is ultimately not interpreted given an interpretation from the lord is not from the lord because again god gives dreams to inform you know the people i've heard that had genuine dreams
were left in no question as to what the dream was about you know we i i've actually received notes from uh people from foreign countries who have had uh raised in a in a country where christianity is all but unheard of and yet they've had dreams of jesus and through those dreams have come to jesus and made him savior and lord of their lives well it was very clear you know for those people what the dream was all about it was all about embracing the work of christ on the cross and making him the savior of their lives they weren't left with any question so
nebuchadnezzar goes on verse six but if you show the dream in other words if you tell me what i dreamt and its interpretation you shall receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor therefore show me the dream and the interpretation and they answered a second time and said well okay fine let the king tell his servants the dream and we'll show its interpretation they're still going so the king answered them i know with certainty that you are trying to gain time because you see that the word from me is firm if you do not make the dream known
to me there is but one sentence for you you have agreed to speak lying and corrupt words before me till the times change therefore tell me the dream and i shall know that you can show me its interpretation you know this is really frankly smart of nebuchadnezzar it really is i have to say i have to kind of give him you know credit here and the chaldeans answered the king and said there is not a man on earth who can meet the king's
demand for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or chaldean and you know what they're saying is true and daniel who is going to tell him his dream and the interpretation is going to actually repeat the same thing he's going to say to the king no man can do this but there's a god in heaven who gives dreams and can make the dream meaning known verse 11 the thing that the king asks is difficult and no one can show it to the king except the gods whose dwelling is not with flesh or in other words is not among man well because of this the king was very angry and very uh was angry and very furious and commanded that all the wise men of babylon be destroyed so the dis the decree went out and the wise men were about to be killed and they sought daniel and his companions to kill them then daniel replied with prudence and discretion to aryak the captain of the king's guard who had gone out to kill the wise men of babylon and he declared to aryak the king's captain why is the decree of the king so urgent and aryak made the matter known to daniel see that tells you right there daniel wasn't in on this call to go in before the king apparently there were groups of his wise men enchanters and magicians and so forth and he didn't call all of them so daniel had to be filled in on exactly what had gone down in this situation verse 16. and daniel went in and requested the king to appoint him a time that he might show the interpretation to the king then daniel went to his house and made the matter known to hananiah mitchell and azariah his
companions and told them to seek mercy from the god of heaven concerning this mystery so that daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of babylon all right so he kind of calls a prayer meeting of his buds and they get together and seek the face of god god we need you to show this to us so that we don't fall under this sentence of death given by the king then verse 19 we love this then the mystery was revealed to daniel in a vision of the night then daniel bless the god of heaven daniel answered and said blessed be the name of god forever and ever to whom belong wisdom and might he changes times and seasons he removes kings and sets up kings he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding he reveals deep 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 might and have now made known to me what we asked of you for you have made known to us the king's matter therefore daniel went into ariak 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 then ariach 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 the king declared
to daniel whose name was belteshazzar are you able to make known to me the dream that i have seen and its interpretation i want you to notice daniel's answer i probably would have changed this up a little bit but he said he answered the king and said no wise men enchanters magicians and or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked but there is a god in heaven who reveals mysteries and is made known to king nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days i probably would reverse that you know i would have started it off by saying well there's a god who can do it i can't but you know just because i i'd i would be afraid that he would have thrown me out before i got to the second part but anyway that's just me so i want you to notice what he says there and we're not we're not finished with verse 29 but did you notice what we just finished reading where he says there's a god verse excuse me verse 28 i'm sorry but there is a god in heaven who reveals
mysteries and here this is important he has made known to king nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days okay what will be in the latter days now not all of this prophecy that is given this vision the interpretation of this dream involves the latter days but some of it does and that is why daniel says what he says he ends verse 28 by saying your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these now verse 29 to you o king as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be after this in other words after you and he who reveals mysteries made known to you what is to be 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 that's what i was saying earlier god gives visions and dreams so that the interpretation may be made known all right and he says that you may know the thoughts of your mind you saw o king and behold a great image this image mighty and of exceeding brightness stood before you and its appearance was frightening now can you imagine being nebuchadnezzar having had this dream he obviously still remembers fully clearly what the dream was all about he may have had it multiple times and he has been looking for someone in his kingdom who can tell him what he dreamt without any hint or previous understanding and daniel begins to lay it out and he says this is what you saw you saw this incredible image with great
brightness and it was frightening and and you can imagine that nebuchadnezzar is on the edge of his seat waiting to hear the rest of it now as we go through and read this next section i want to put a slide up on the screen and we're going to you're going to see this for the most of the time that we have remaining here this evening in this chapter because this image is essentially a recreation of what this statue could have very easily looked like that nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream and you're going to hear descriptions of the statue and then daniel is going to give the interpretation of those descriptions and i wanted you to have it on the screen here so that you can follow along as we go through these but let's keep reading in verse 32 shall we here we go the head of this
image of 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 this was the dream can you again can you imagine nebuchadnezzar he this man has just told him everything about his dream he says and this was your dream but he goes on in verse 36 to say now we will tell the king its interpretation all right so uh now you can see that image and you can kind of you'll be following along here um but what i want you to know going into this is that what you see on the screen behind me is essentially a depiction of what we call because jesus referred to it as the times of the gentiles this is what nebuchadnezzar was given in fact let me just go away from that image for a moment and show you where jesus said in luke 21 verse 24 jesus said jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the gentiles until the times of the gentiles are fulfilled all right now this period that we call the times of the gentiles began in 605 bc when nebuchadnezzar came in and essentially conquered jerusalem and overran the city and it continues this is kind of the exciting part the times of the gentiles continues today we are still in the times of the gentiles and we will be until jesus returns and establishes his kingdom on the face of the earth now we've there's been some shifting to this times of the gentiles in other words in the late 1940s we know that israel once again became a nation so that was a shift however they are not in complete and total control of their land as you well know they've been under domination by other countries and even to this day they are a mix of uh palestinian and uh israeli living in that same area and so the times of the gentiles continue uh even up to this day now we're going to learn about the times of the gentiles and the
progression of the kingdoms of the of the gentiles as we go on here and listen to daniel's interpretation we're in verse 37 so look with me in your bible daniel says 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 hands 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 so as you look at the chart slash image on the screen you see that that head of gold represents babylon and you might be interested to find out you know it wasn't that terribly long ago we went through the book of jeremiah you might remember that jeremiah actually referred to babylon as a golden cup in the lord's hand so that reference to the gold representing babylon is a significant one now what do we know about gold well it's worth a lot it represents splendor but it's also a very soft metal and one of the things you find as you go through these various metals that make up this image is that they get increasingly worth less i should say they have of decreasing worth but increasing strength so gold is wonderful and you know great great splendor is attached to it but it's a fairly weak metal even so you can probably imagine what it was like for nebuchadnezzar to hear daniel say you o king are the king of kings for now and god has given you dominion over all man and even the birds and the beasts of the field he's given you dominion can you would that mess with your head at all if you heard that i mean it probably would me i'm thinking you know if if if somebody told me you know you are the man nebby and we're going to find out in the next chapter that uh it actually is going to go to his head so we'll we'll deal with that but notice he says in verse 39 he says another kingdom inferior to you and that's inferior in splendor shall arise after you now we don't have to wait to find out what this is all about because we know what nation
conquered babylon what empire it was the medo-persian empire in fact daniel lived long enough to see that happen he was still there in the persian kingdom when the medes and persians came in and overthrow overthrew the babylonians but they are represented in the image as the chest and arms of silver not quite as resplendent as gold but a little bit stronger we're going to see how that plays out i'll explain how that that strength plays out in just a minute we're still in verse 39 he goes on to say and yet a third kingdom of bronze which shall rule over all the earth now this you guys as you can see on the list is the grecian empire greece which rose up and conquered the medo-persians and flourished under the military leadership of alexander the great some of you remember your history from high school or maybe even early college where you learned about alexander and he was an amazing amazing military uh conqueror who who died very early very young man when he when he passed away but that is the empire that is next uh represented there in the statue with that bronze uh verse 40. notice this now and there shall be a fourth kingdom strong as iron because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things notice that all things are shattered by the iron why it's the strongest it's the strongest metal it's the least expensive or should i say splendorous perhaps but it it is strong and he says and like iron here at the end of verse 40 that crushes it shall break and crush all these so this is rome the the the empire of the romans much less in splendor than the kingdoms that came before it but tough as nails and in its you know substance and military might now let me explain to you a little bit about the interesting fact that we know historically about these metals that dec or that that increase in strength but decrease in splendor do you know that the babylonian kingdom it rose to power and it stuck around for a mere 66 years and that's why daniel was there when the babylonians were overthrown by the medes and the persians now the medo-persian empire represented by the silver is a little bit stronger metal but they stuck around for uh for 208 years all right now the grecian empire stuck around for about 185 years very similar to the medo-persians but the roman empire which is that you know that metal that is the strongest and crushes all the rest
lasted for more than 500 years so you can kind of see how these things are represented and and you also know that the roman empire was still in power in the world when jesus came on the scene and during the time of his public ministry in fact it was the romans who conquered jerusalem just like the babylonians did came into the city destroyed the city raised the temple to the ground and so the and of course jesus prophesied that destruction of the temple in a.d 70. so we have these gentile nations that start with the babylonian empire medes in the persians grecian empire roman empire spanning all these areas up to the time of christ and beyond but now we come to the final part of the statue look it with me in verse 41 in your bible it says 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 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 now this is this is fascinating and it actually gives us and tells us quite a bit about this final kingdom that nebuchadnezzar is shown in his dream and he's told that the feet and the toes are made up of an amalgamation of iron and soft clay which of course doesn't work they won't adhere to one another and so wherever there is soft clay the iron is not going to be able to hold and in fact the the clay robs the ability of the iron to hold together so at whatever point the iron is met with clay it is at that point that the two elements cannot be joined strong in any sort of a strong sort of a way all right so i we're all sitting here and we're waiting and you'll notice that i don't have an explanation up on the screen and i did that on purpose because i wanted to kind of make this a little bit of a cliffhanger at least for a couple of minutes because because the real question is what does this represent what kingdom what empire what nation is being spoken of here by the image of the feet and the toes of the the the the statue well i'm going to give you what i believe is is a correct interpretation of this but in order to do it first i need to explain something to you you need to understand that in the old testament the church and the church age does not appear and i've said this to you many times
throughout the years the the church age began during that period of time that we read about in acts chapter 2 where the holy spirit fell on the assembled believers peter got up and preached an incredible evangelistic message and in one day 3 000 people were added to the church that was the inauguration if you will of the church the body of christ it began at that point and we ushered in a new era we ended that period of time for israel and now we enter into what we call the church age and we're going to talk more about this when we get deeper into the book of daniel but i want to remind you of something the church does not appear in the old testament god doesn't prophesy about the church he talks about salvation that will be ours but he doesn't talk about the body of christ he doesn't talk about specifically about this new entity
that paul makes reference to in romans that is made up of jew and gentile this one new man if you will that is is where jew and gentile no longer matters and so forth all right that isn't mentioned in the old testament uh in fact there's a very simple image i want to show you up on the screen that we refer to as the the mountain peaks of prophecy and this might give you a at least a a a image an illustration to help you understand a little bit about what the old testaments could see and what they couldn't see they of course saw anything that the lord told them related to israel and they also saw the first coming of messiah they saw his second coming and they prophesied many times about his the millennial age or what we call the messianic or kingdom age which will be that 1000 year period of time following the great tribulation they saw that that's in the old testament we'll talk about it we'll deal with it here in the book of daniel later on but what they could not see is the church age that we are currently in that has now been going for some 2000 some years all right so given that this idea is true that prophecy skips over the church age and then continues after the the the church age and after the church is caught away if you will now we come back to say what are the feet and the toes of this statue shown to nebuchadnezzar well i believe that it refers to the controlling world powers that will be during the time of the great tribulation and you might say well are there any correlating or corresponding things in the statute itself that would lead you to believe that well again i'm led to believe that because again the church age is is not seen in old testament prophecy but i want you to i i find it very interesting to take note of the fact that with these two feet there were ten toes and it's very interesting that in the book of revelation john is given a picture of this controlling power that begins to take over during the time of the great tribulation and he refers to it as a beast that emerges out of the sea that has ten horns and we know that in scripture horn always refers to power so there are ten powers and it is largely believed that that vision that john sees in the book of revelation relates to a ten nation federation or a federation if you will of ten nations that come together under the auspices of satan if you will and and he who is essentially the antichrist and will rule during the time of the great tribulation we also know that that those nations will not be very tightly wound together there will be division among them during that time so it frankly is a perfect match for the ten toes of the statue's feet so once again my belief is that these the feet and ten toes represent that time period that um makes up world power during the great tribulation now we come to the portion of this that makes reference to the latter days you remember daniel said to nebuchadnezzar it refer it refers to the latter days look at verse 44 and this is an interesting statement he begins here by saying and in the days of those kings what kings well we just got done talking about the feet we just got done describing the feet with the ten toes and now daniel says in the days of those kings what happens in other words during the time of the great tribulation the god of heaven he says will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed nor shall the kingdom be left to another people it shall break in pieces although 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 in other words this is not going to be purely a human ruler or a human kingdom it is a divine kingdom and he goes on to say 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 is sure so this last imagery is kind of exciting because it speaks to us of the messianic kingdom he's talking about this stone or rock if you will that is hewn out of the mountain rolls down the hill hits the statue where on the feet hits it on the feet that's critical too for i think understanding that the feet represent the kingdoms of the world during the time of the great tribulation and he says and it says all of the other kingdoms that are kind of absorbed into this are now destroyed as well and and by the way we shouldn't be surprised at all that the kingdom of messiah is illustrated to us here by a stone because a stone or a rock is often used in the bible to speak of god and particularly speak of messiah so we we are we're given here the information related to that period of time when jesus christ returns to the earth i was i was meeting on monday with a group from florida by a video chat who had just
finished my study in the book of revelation and they wanted to have a video meeting as kind of a final meeting and one of the questions they asked was you know when is the second coming of jesus christ we want to be clear about that is it when he comes for the church or is it when he comes to earth and that's a very common question the second coming of jesus is when he comes to earth when he returns at the end of the great tribulation the rapture is when jesus comes for his church to catch away the bride
but he doesn't come to earth when he comes to receive his bride the bible says very clearly we are caught up to meet him in the air right in the clouds so then we are with the lord and then we return with the lord later to the earth and that is what we call the second coming of jesus christ all right so important that we get those terms kind of straight now we finish off the chapter here verse 46 interesting then king
nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face and paid homage to daniel and commanded that an offering and incense be offered up to him it doesn't say whether daniel objected to this i imagine he probably did but we're just we're not told you know in this particular uh section the king answered and said to daniel truly your god is god of gods and lord of lords and a revealer of mysteries for you have been able to reveal this mystery so nebuchadnezzar is duly impressed with everything that daniel has revealed to him so making good on his promise verse 48 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 and daniel made a
request of the king and he appointed shadrach meshach and abednego over the affairs of the province of babylon but daniel remained at the king's court so this is a this is a wonderful chapter but it's it's it's also incredibly insightful for helping us to understand that period of time once again that jesus referred to as the times of the gentiles and uh we see that god is uh sovereignly in charge that's you know that's the one takeaway you know when i read this chapter if i'm convinced of anything when i get done reading it it's that god knows god has a plan and god has seen that plan through to the end there's also another kind of interesting sort of a picture that we get from this interesting statue whereas evolution would kind of suggest to us that things always get better we see these kingdoms of man devolving if you will um and and in in splendor at least and uh and ultimately destroyed by the king the true king of kings and lord of lords so that's where we're going to stop for tonight daniel chapter 2 we're going to pick it up in daniel chapter 3 next time lord willing and we'll have some good stuff to to go through yeah these are these are such great chapters and can you see also how the lord prepared daniel and his friends from daniel chapter one with that issue of the food how he was preparing them to trust him and there would come times in the future and god knew it when they would be called upon and the need would be great and their lives would be on the line and they would need to trust the lord and to say god only you can save us only you can bring us through this time you're the only one who can do it so do not despise the small challenges that come into your life the lord is teaching all of us to trust in him with all of our hearts let's pray heavenly father we thank you so much tonight for giving us this insightful chapter as we see here lord that you you know the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end and how we can look back historically and we can see exactly what all of those different elements of that statue represented in past history even though daniel was revealing these mysteries during the time of the very first kingdom lord i thank you that your plan cannot be thwarted that your sovereignty cannot be overruled and that your purpose in all of these things will finally come to pass meanwhile father god we trust you we we determine tonight to put our trust in you and our hope in you to believe that you have a purpose still and a plan still that you're carrying out for your people and lord until this age ends this church age when you come and receive your bride we pray that you would make us faithful and true to what we know from the scriptures what you've revealed to us and what you are doing in us to form christ in our hearts and minds father god meanwhile my i pray that we would be busy doing the work that you've given us to do and that we would be faithful in all these things to serve you with a whole heart we ask that you would guide and direct us and we ask it in the name of jesus christ our savior and our lord amen
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