If you look at Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, the four young men that came from Judah under the captivity when Nebuchadnezzar’s first invasion of Judah and were brought back into Babylon and were being trained to be wise men of Babylon and to be conformed to the Babylonian culture. They were given new names. Daniel’s name was changed to Belteshazzar, Hananiah to Shadrach, Mishael to Meshach, and Azariah to Abednego. And when we studied and looked at their names in the first lesson, we saw that the whole concept was to take their minds and transform them into Babylonians from being Jews. We also know that every one of their names had great significance. Daniel means God’s judges.
Hananiah means God is gracious. Azariah means that God is with us. And Mishael means God is who God is. These four young men faced challenges that we have not felt the depth of that type of challenge. During COVID, Christians were challenged because it was really a test, I believe a lot of it was a test to see, are you going to believe in God and are you going to believe in his promises? Are you going to continue to worship? Are you going to continue to praise? Are you going to continue to have fellowship? Are you going to continue to obey the word of God and where it says do not forsake the assembling together when they tried to do everything in their possibility to destroy the church? These young men were in a very similar situation. They wanted to destroy their very character.
God will use you just like he used Daniel to reach people. And you don’t know who it is, but we’re called to be faithful just as Daniel was faithful.
As we come to chapter two, we studied last week, Nebuchadnezzar was having a dream, but he could never remember the dream. All he knew is he was terrified by this dream. And so he got all of the magicians, the Chaldeans, the sorcerers together and he told them that they needed to tell him the dream and then give him the interpretation. And they kept saying, well, you tell us the dream and we’ll give you the interpretation. He said, I can’t remember the dream, but I’m up to what your plot is here. It’s really easy.
If I tell you the dream, you can come up with any interpretation you want to. No, I want you to tell me the dream and then tell me the interpretation. And if you can’t, you’re going to be dead men and all your possessions will be burned.
Daniel and his three friends were considered, if you would, learners in that school and they would have been killed as well. As we saw last week, they really believed in what their names said. That God is judge, God is gracious, God is who God is and God will help. And so they had a prayer meeting and they believed that God hears. He’s not like the false gods that cannot hear and can do nothing. God not only heard, but God answered their prayer.
And today we’re going to see that God gave to Daniel not only the dream, but the interpretation of the dream. As you come to this particular dream that Nebuchadnezzar had, this dream is really a prophetic dream dealing with four kingdoms that are going to come. The first kingdom already exists and that is Babylon.
These four kingdoms, as when I gave the introduction way back, all have a belief system that’s tied to this world system and could be all traced back to the Tower of Babel and Nimrod. But you can even go back further than that as we saw that you can go back beyond the Tower of Babel and Nimrod all the way back to when Adam and Eve were in the garden and they willfully chose to rebel against God and try to become gods themselves. And this was the whole foundation of this false kingdom, this earthly kingdom that Satan has established to come against the kingdom of God.
And he’s got men to believe that they can be gods.
Even today, at the foundation of really all of man’s rebellion is that I can do what I want to do because I’m not accountable to the creator of the universe. We were even talking in our Sunday school class this morning that they will deny that God even exists and that He created anything and they’re getting Christians to believe that same thing, which is a lie from the pit of hell because it undermines the gospel.
Well, let’s take a look in chapter 2 beginning at verse 24. Daniel is gone in to be with Nebuchadnezzar. He has sent the man who is the overseer of all of the sorcerers and magicians and Chaldeans and who is instructed by Nebuchadnezzar to have them all put to death. And Daniel has gone to him and said, wait, I will go in to Nebuchadnezzar and I will give the dream and the interpretation of the dream. Do not put these men to death. And Daniel is now going to do this.
I want you to understand this is not something like calling up your local senator and going in to his office to tell him something. Nebuchadnezzar was the absolute ruler of Babylon. You just didn’t go in to his presence. You just didn’t decide one day, well, I think I’ve got the solution. I can do it. He had to allow you to come in. And he could and did possess the authority to do whatever he wanted to do with your life. He could have you killed for merely coming in. But Daniel says, I will go in.
That’s beginning at verse 24.
Daniel 2:24-49
24 Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon: he went and said thus unto him; Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will shew unto the king the interpretation.
25 Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said thus unto him, I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known unto the king the interpretation. 26 The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof? 27 Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; 28 but there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these; 29 As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass. 30 But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart.
31 Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. 32 This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, 33 his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. 34 Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. 35 Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
36 This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. 37 Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. 38 And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. 39 And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. 40 And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. 41 And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. 42 And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. 43 And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. 44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. 45 Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.
Let’s just bow in prayer Dear Holy Father as I come before you Lord I pray that you just help us to understand that your word is true you are above all of your creation and you raise men up and you tear men down you raise up kingdoms and those kingdoms shall come to naught and it’s all by your authority and your will Lord I pray that you just help us to see that Daniel was given not only the interpretation but it was revealed to him the vision of what was going to come of four great empires and Lord we live in a day where we can look back and see that this dream came true and the finality of it is coming to fruition in our lifetime and Lord help us to be encouraged to see that your word is true that your promises are sure and that you deliver upon the authority of your word this we ask in Jesus name Amen
You can believe that Nebuchadnezzar was terrified when he saw this giant statue. The word here for terrified means to be greatly, greatly troubled. He didn’t know what it was about.
Remember, at this particular time, Nebuchadnezzar was still ruling in the early years of his reign. He had just taken over the kingdom and was in the second year of ruling by himself. Prior to that, he had been co-regent with his father. When Daniel and the other three young men were taken, along with many captives out of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar was not yet ruling completely on his own. But now, two years later, he was the total king of Babylon.
Babylon was the closest kingdom to the tower of Babel and Nimrod’s vision of a world empire. Nebuchadnezzar held absolute authority and power. He was a brilliant man: an architect, a warrior, a philosopher, an agronomist, and a builder. But most of all, he was not a believer. God was about to reveal Himself to this “man of men”—this one who was trying to establish a kingdom on earth that would fulfill all that Nimrod had dreamed. God would show him who was really in charge, and it began with this dream.
At this time in history, the Roman armies weren’t even a thought. Rome consisted of small city-states that didn’t get along. Greece was not yet a power; like Rome, it was divided into city-states often at war with one another. The Medes and the Persians were still two separate entities. When this dream was given, they had not yet joined to form a greater land mass and kingdom than Babylon. None of these events had yet come to fruition. And yet, God was revealing to Nebuchadnezzar what was going to happen.
Daniel began by saying: You are the head of gold. Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom was like no other. It was absolute. The ones that followed would be inferior. His kingdom was the first to hold such total authority—whatever he wanted to do, he could do.
The Medes and Persians, by contrast, ruled differently. Their empire combined two nations, and even the king himself could not go against his own decrees. We see this in the book of Esther: Haman appealed to King Ahasuerus’ pride to declare that all the Jews should be killed on a certain day. When Esther later appealed, the king admitted nothing could be done to overturn the law. Instead, he issued another decree allowing the Jews to defend themselves. That was an inferior system compared to Nebuchadnezzar, who could change his mind instantly. In fact, he had already commanded the death of the Chaldeans, sorcerers, and magicians—then suddenly reversed it, because he had that power.
The Grecian kingdom was similar. It was mighty under Alexander, but once he died, the empire was divided among four generals. Two of them, ruling from Syria and Egypt, became the most prominent. The other two held smaller territories in Macedonia and Greece. Constant war weakened their unity. This division is reflected in the statue’s belly and thighs of brass. Brass, stronger than silver, symbolized both the weapons and the culture of Greece.
Finally, the legs of iron represented the Roman Empire. Rome was known for its unmatched armies—unyielding, disciplined, and strong, just like iron. Though its government was not an absolute monarchy like Nebuchadnezzar’s, it became the most dominant power the world had seen.
The shield would go before them, and they’d carry their weapons. The Apostle Paul gives an example of how a Roman soldier would have been outfitted, and when he talks about the armor of God, there’d be a helmet, a breastplate, a belt, there’d be a sword, and a shield, and then there’d be footwear. The thing is, just like Paul did not give any coverings for the back, the Roman soldier had no coverings for the back.
They were never to turn and run. They were not to retreat. They were always to go forward, to conquer their adversary, and they would crush them.
And this is what they were known to do. They’d come in and just annihilate the other armories. But he said that this empire would end up becoming two, and then it would end up being transformed once again.
Now, we also know that during the Roman Empire, it became divided into the Eastern and Western Roman Empire under Constantine, and Constantinople became the Eastern headquarters for Constantine, and Rome remained the Western headquarters, and out of those two came the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, which, after the Roman Empire was defeated, those remained and functioned much like the emperors of Rome functioned. But out of this Roman Empire would come another empire that would be totally different. It’d be something that would be very strange, because it would take iron, and this statue has this iron mixed with clay, and it has ten toes that are mixed with iron and clay.
It says iron and clay are incompatible, really. If you had iron, you could take metals and you could melt the metals and you could combine them. You can do that with silver, gold, brass, iron.
You can melt them, but you can’t do it with clay. Clay is dirt. You take clay and if you heat it, it becomes pottery, but if you try to melt it and get it to combine with iron, it won’t do it, because the clay is much more brittle and will break where the iron will remain rigid.
But yet the last kingdom’s got iron and clay, and then it’s got ten toes, and he refers to these as heads of this last kingdom. There’ll be ten kings in this last kingdom. Now we can look back and see that this is exactly what happened.
You had the Babylonian kingdom and the Babylonians were defeated by the Medes and the Persians. The Medes and Persians remained in power, and they were in turn defeated by Alexander the Great, the Grecians. The Grecians remained in power, and they were in turn defeated by Rome. And then we saw, as I mentioned, there is no Roman kingdom per se today, although the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, they’ve taken titles for their leaders that are titles for the emperor of Rome. They’ve taken the Roman Catholic Church, especially if you look at the colors that they have taken for their leadership and their ministerium, they’re the same colors that were used by the leadership of the Roman Empire. The same things that they do were used by the Roman Empire.
They really, in a sense, have become the religious arm of the Roman Empire that once existed as a political and religious arm combined. And likewise, the Orthodox is very much similar to the Roman Catholics. There is a few doctrinal differences, but they’re very similar, but they don’t get along because they were the division of the original Roman Empire.
What he’s saying is that in the last days there’s going to be something that’s going to come about. There’s going to be a resurrection of this empire. And I believe that we’re seeing the beginning of that in the day in which we live.
You’re seeing this empire rise again. You’re seeing the promotion of a one-world government. The World Economic Forum, the Club of Rome, they’re promoting a one-world government. And both of them, interestingly enough, want to divide the world into 10 regions. Interesting, where do you see 10? They want these 10 regions to be ruled by one central authoritarian government, but they’d each have their own king, if you would, or governor, if you would, over that region. Just like the statue said.
You’re able to see some of these things come about. When I was a young man and a young boy, we’d go and we’d hear prophecy conferences, and they’d come to the book of Daniel, and they couldn’t explain some of the things. They couldn’t explain, for example, where later on he talks about the fact that knowledge would exponentially increase.
Go buy a computer today, see how long it stays before it’s outdated. You can’t even walk out of the store before the thing has got something that was better and faster. The ability, and now they’re talking of artificial intelligence, where it will be computer generated and all these different things that are coming, and it’s coming at just a breakneck speed, just like boom, boom, boom, boom.
Just like the Bible said. They talked about the fact that if you get to the book of Revelation, and you see in the book of Revelation it talks about two witnesses that are going to come, and these two witnesses are going to come to Israel, and they’re going to be witnesses in Jerusalem, and the whole world will observe them. Well, when I was a young boy, we had, at best, black and white TV that you had to go up and hit on the side of the television, because the thing would go, whoa, whoa, whoa.
And you’d whack it once, and the tubes would align themselves, so you could get this frosty, snowy picture that you could hardly see. And it usually came, ours came, we had two stations in Fargo, and that was about the livest thing you got was the news from Fargo. But the Bible tells us that the whole world is going to be able to observe these two witnesses in Jerusalem.
Did you know that that’s available to do right now? You can turn on your phone, which is a more powerful computer than I used to have when I first had my first computer to work with. It’s way more powerful. You can turn on your phone and get news updates live from Jerusalem, just like the Bible said was going to happen. And so Nebuchadnezzar, if you can imagine this dream that he’s having, he’s living in a totally different world than we’re living in. Daniel, later on, talks about how men are going to travel to and fro. That means very quickly.
Nebuchadnezzar’s day, you had to get a donkey and a cart, and you might get to the town that was 20 miles away the next day. Maybe. Today, you can go out to Hector Airport, get on an airliner, and you can be in Europe in a matter of hours. Something he didn’t even understand, and now Elon Musk is talking about SpaceX and traveling to the moon and traveling way beyond the sound barrier in rockets. So Nebuchadnezzar’s observing this, and it’s a very terrifying and troubling thing. He’s not seeing all of that, but he’s seeing this image, and he can’t understand it.
And Daniel tells him, you are seeing something that God has revealed from heaven. Men could not tell you this because God knows the beginning from the end. God is revealing this because God knows these kingdoms that are coming.
Now it’s also interesting, why did these kingdoms come in the first place? God had intended, and if you look way back in the history of Israel, when they first came into the land and became a nation, they didn’t have a king. They had God as their king. They would have judges that when they got in trouble, God would send these men, and he would show them the wickedness of their ways, he’d call them to repentance, and these men would also lead the nation of Israel against their enemies.
Samson, the Philistines, Gideon, the Midianites, other different judges in the book of Judges, but they were not kings. Samuel was the last judge. The nation of Israel, the elders of Israel came to Samuel and said, we want a king, we want to be like other nations.
Samuel told them, the Lord said, Samuel was very angry. And God told Samuel, Samuel, it’s not because of you. They’re not mad with you because you’re a judge.
They’re angry with Me. They do not want to follow My commands. They don’t want to do what I want them to do.
They’re not seeing that I have given them all they need. I will be their protector. I will be their provider.
I will be their redeemer. But it’s not you, Samuel, it’s Me. But I want you to tell them, if they have a king, this is what’s going to happen.
The king’s going to come and he’s going to tax them. He’s going to take their possessions for his use. He’s going to take their young men.
He’s going to conscript their young men and place them in his army. He’s going to take their young women and he’s going to place their young women into his service. They will not have the freedom that they would have had if I would have been their king.
Saul became their king. An ungodly man, but a man of the world. Stood head and shoulders above every other Israelite.
And in my mind, there’s no doubt that he was a very handsome and very well muscular built man. And they put their trust in him instead of God. He was a total failure.
And after him came David. But after David came a series of kings that were failures. Some were successful, but most were failures.
Most didn’t follow God. And you see, Israel, who had been called to be a light and a salt to the world, they’d been called to be the ones that the world would look at and would reveal the God of heaven to the world, because God had created them as a nation. Through them would come the law in the scriptures.
Through them would come the Messiah, the Deliverer. But also to them was to be a witness to the world of the reality of God. But they gave it up for a king.
God hasn’t put them on the shelf. They’re still being used by him, as a matter of fact. The scriptures tell us, and the book of Daniel is going to reveal to us, that they are the clock that reveals to us where God is on his last days in the day of judgment that’s upcoming to the whole world.
They are the telling sign. Because God isn’t done with them. But for much of its history, Israel was done with God.
And so God has this time. And remember, if you’re with me, when we’ve been looking at Jeremiah, we know that Jeremiah was sent as a prophet during the time of Josiah, the last godly king of Israel, and one of the last kings of Israel. That’s when Jeremiah came.
And he came with a prophecy telling them, the nation of Israel, when Josiah’s sons came to rule, and three of them ruled along with a grandson, that when they ruled, they needed to repent and turn back to God, or they would be taken away into captivity by the Babylonians, by this very king, Nebuchadnezzar. They didn’t believe. And they were taken away into captivity.
Now Daniel revealed to them the purpose of that captivity, how long they’d be in that captivity. It’d be 70 years, to pay for the 70 years that they had not celebrated the year of Jubilee. And then he’s going to talk about that there’s going to be a period of time, the last seven years, where it’s going to be a time of Jacob’s trouble.
The world is going to refer to it as, or God refers to it rather, as the Great Tribulation. All of that flows out of this statue. And we see that everything happened exactly like Daniel said it would.
Babylon, Medes and Persians, Greece, Rome. And today we’re seeing the culmination of the revived Roman Empire, as men tried to put together this kingdom with ten regions. Well, as Daniel is telling this to Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar is thrilled that someone is interpreting it.
And he says, Then King Nebuchadnezzar, in verse 46, fell upon his face and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that he should offer an oblation and sweet odors unto him. The king answered unto Daniel and said, Of a truth it is that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou shouldest reveal this secret. Then the king made Daniel a great man, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon.
Then Daniel requested of the king, and he sent for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon. But Daniel sat in the gate of the king. And the gate of the king is the authority of the king.
God is in control. God knows the beginning from the end. We’re going to see how God deals with Nebuchadnezzar in the weeks ahead.
This man who is very proud, and this man who misinterprets what Daniel was telling him about that he was the highest of them all, and he was the king of kings and Lord of lords from a worldly perspective, but not from God’s perspective. God has given us this so that we can understand the last days, and see that throughout history, he’s been at work in history. Today, many people think that God isn’t working.
Look at all the things that are happening in the world. Look at all the evil and wickedness. But it’s always been there.
Daniel’s prophecies and the book that we see tie exactly into what is given to us in the book of Revelation, which speaks to the fact that there’s coming a day where God is going to establish his kingdom. The last thing that I failed to mention was the most significant and important kingdom of all, and that was the rock that was built and cut out of a mountain without hands, whose maker and builder was God. And this kingdom, it was a rock.
It wasn’t made by men. It wasn’t even precious metal in the eyes of men. It was a rock, a stone.
But it came, and it came with great authority. And it hit the statue, and it hit the statue during the last kingdom. And it says that the feet began to crumble.
The toes, made of clay and iron, broke. And when the feet and the legs crumbled, the whole statue came down. And everything that men had made and established as their kingdoms throughout the history of the world was coming to a crashing halt.
And what was being established was this rock turned into a mighty mountain. And this mountain covered the whole earth. And we see that this is exactly what Jesus will do when he will come and rule and reign in righteousness.
He who is the rock of our salvation will rule and reign from the throne of David in Jerusalem, and he’ll rule and reign with righteousness. Not like these kingdoms that were kingdoms of men. And that when he comes and establishes his kingdom, it will be an eternal kingdom.
It’s not going to be just for a few hundred years, like each of these kingdoms. It’ll be forever. You can understand why Nebuchadnezzar would say, your God is the God of gods and lords of lords.
No one else could explain such amazing things nor understand what will happen in the future and what’s happening today. God desires that each one of us trust in him. If you’ve given your life to him, realize that it’s the same God that redeemed your soul that was working in the heart of Daniel and his friends.
God will use you just like he used Daniel to reach people. And you don’t know who it is, but we’re called to be faithful just as Daniel was faithful.
That’s just a closing prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we pray that you would just help us to understand the coming kingdom. Lord, help us to see that there aren’t any events that have to take place for this last kingdom to start coming into power, except for the rapture of your church. And Lord, I pray that everyone here is ready that they’re a believer in you.
And Lord, help us to realize that just as real as the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Grecian, and Roman kingdoms were, and this new revived Roman empire will be, the reality of your return and establishment of your kingdom is just as real and more real because you’re already at work in the hearts of your people. Lord, I pray that you would just help us to be used by you in the days ahead to proclaim who you are and the redemption that is found in Jesus Christ, your Son. This we ask in Jesus’ name.