Why Is Nebuchadnezzar's Dream Still Relevant Today? Daniel 2

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Good afternoon, good everybody back, and I see you're all ready to go. Once again, we just want to welcome those of you watching on television. For those of you who may have just tuned in in the last week or two, we're just an informal Bible study, and all we try to do is open the Scriptures where anybody can understand it, because I know that so many people read their Bibles, I've had some tell me, I've read it through five times and didn't understand a thing I read. But we try to change that, help people to understand what it's really talking about. All right, now we left off last program, you'll remember, with the great image that Nebuchadnezzar had constructed of himself, more or less, huge, made of gold, and how he tried to more or less amalgamate all the religions of his day under a worship of himself, and then we took you right back to Revelation, where the Antichrist and the false prophet will do much the same thing during the Tribulation. And so you begin the times of the Gentiles, which this really is now. You remember two weeks ago we talked about that when Jesus spoke in Luke 21 of the times of the Gentiles, when Jerusalem would be trodden down by Gentiles until Christ will return, and then, of course, it'll all revert back to Israel and their relationship with their Jehovah God. But now back, if you will, to Daniel chapter 2, and we're going to drop right down again to verse 31, where Daniel begins to interpret this dream, recovers it and interprets it, and he says that you saw a great image. And he said, "...this image, whose brightness was excellent." Now for those of you with various translations, you'll find some different words used here, but the whole context shows that even in his dream the vision of this great, humongous image just shook O Nebuchadnezzar to his feet, and it was terrible. It was frightening. It was just something about it that was beyond human understanding. And so it was excellent, and the form thereof was terrible. And again, the language is such that it was frightening. It was terrifying. Now Daniel continues on. He says, "...the head was of fine gold, and his breast or chest area and the arms were of silver, the belly or the abdomen area was of brass, and then his legs," two of them, of course, like a human, "...the two legs were of iron, and then the feet were a mixture, part iron and part clay." Now, it's interesting, if you know anything of mathematics at all or science, you'll notice, and I've just put to work, I used to draw this. Some of you know that. I used to try and draw it, and it was so pitiful I was ashamed of it afterwards, and then I had someone make one for me, and that just didn't feel right. So now for the benefit of those on television so they don't have to laugh at my artistry, I'm just going to put the words up there in their sequence, because I think I'll let you draw your own picture of this image. It might be a big robot like out of Star Wars or out of some comic strip. I don't care how you picture it, but I want you to picture it in the context of a human torso, and the head, as Nebuchadnezzar saw it, was of pure gold, the chest of silver, the belly area of brass, the legs of iron, and then you come down to the bottom where the feet were made a mixture of iron and clay. Now I said if you have any concept of science or mathematics, you'll immediately see that the specific gravity, the density, is the heaviest at the top. Gold has the highest specific gravity of any of these elements, and then you get down to the iron and clay that has the lowest. So what you really have is an image here that so far as engineering is concerned is, that's right Helen, it's top heavy. There's no stability to it whatsoever. I'm glad people can read my mind. Now she hadn't heard me teach this before, so I'm going to give her full credit for understanding. It was top heavy. Now I'll read on of Daniel's interpretation of the dream. He says, King, you saw this huge image made of all these metals, and again I like to think of them as out there on that Middle Eastern sun, just shimmering in the sunlight. And he said, all of a sudden you saw a stone cut out without hands, in other words no human element involved. Now who does that have to be? Well, a person of the Godhead has to be God, and as most of you now know, whenever you have a reference to the rock of Scripture or the stone in Scripture, who is it? Well, it's always Christ. And so the intimation here, even though He's not named as such, but the stone cut out without hands is Christ. All right, He's coming out of, you might say, nowhere. This stone cut out without hands, and it smote, or it struck this image upon His feet. Now I'm emphasizing that because I want you to remember that, and we're going to come back in a little bit and explain. And so this stone coming out of nowhere strikes this…now remember this is all symbolism. This is teaching us a literal truth. And it strikes this image upon His feet that were made of iron and clay. Now it's already top heavy. So what happens? Boy, I mean, that thing just tips right over, and then what happens? This stone just literally rolls it like a steamroller building a highway. It just rolls over all of the metals of this great image. Now read on. And it smote the image upon His feet there of iron and clay, broke them to pieces, crushed them. Then He moved on up over the iron aspect of the legs, and then the brass, and then the silver, and then the gold. And they became like…what?...chaff, powder, dust. So that the wind carried them away, and that no place was found for them. And the stone…Christ now remember…the stone that smote or destroyed this image became a great mountain. Now I always stress when we have our other classes, certain words of Scripture that are symbolic will maintain that symbolism almost all the way through from cover to cover. And here is a typical one. A mountain in Scripture, unless the text delineates a particular mountain, like Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb or some other definitive word, if the mountain is used like it is here, it's always a kingdom, most generally the kingdom. And as I've stressed again over the years, the kingdom is the kingdom is the kingdom. All through Scripture there is only one kingdom, and it's the kingdom that Christ will set up on earth when He returns to become King of kings and Lord of lords. Now you see, even in His earthly ministry when He said, "...the kingdom is within you," my theologians have taken that and they have so twisted it out of shape that nobody can recognize it, but literally what He was saying is that in order for us to become part and parcel of that literal, physical, political kingdom that is one day coming on the earth, if we're going to be part of it there has to be, yes, there has to be an inner spiritual relationship with God to become a part of it. See, that's what He meant when He said to Nicodemus in John's Gospel chapter 3, "...except a man of born again he cannot see," what? The kingdom of heaven. Well, it's so true, but this kingdom of heaven is going to be the kingdom on earth. It's the same kingdom. Now tonight during the church age we've got to go look at Scripture. Keep your hand in Daniel. Go back with me to Colossians. You remember when John the Baptist began his ministry, what was the crux of his message? The kingdom of heaven is what? At hand. Well, what was he talking about? Jesus was just around the corner. He was about to begin His earthly ministry. Well, He is the essence of the kingdom, see? But it's not a spiritual, ethereal, invisible kingdom, although that is also involved because this kingdom is spiritual, it's physical, it's political, and it'll come to its fruition when Christ returns and sets it up on the earth. But in the interim, since He is no longer on the earth and we can no longer say the kingdom of heaven is at hand, when He went back to heaven where did the kingdom go? With Him into heaven. Now then, as I've again stressed ever since Genesis 1-1, in the beginning God created heaven and what? Earth. So all through Scripture we have these two entities. We have the nation of Israel, the earthly people of God, and we have the church, the heavenly people of God. All right, now you've got Colossians chapter 1 where Paul now writes to us Gentiles, and he's praying for the Colossi believers, and it's a prayer that is certainly valid for us today. And then if you'll just forsake a time, drop down to verse 12 where he said he's giving thanks unto the Father, who hath made us meet, or has prepared us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Now here it comes, who, speaking of the Father, the Father has, past tense, delivered us, and remember Paul always speaks to or on behalf of believers, never an unbeliever. And so the Father has already delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath already translated us into what? The kingdom of His dear Son. If you're a child of God tonight, where are you? You're in the kingdom, you're in the kingdom. Now, when Christ comes at His second coming and sets up the kingdom on the earth, where are we going to be? We're going to be with Him, we're going to be with Him. And as the New Testament teaches so plainly, Paul, as well as in the book of Revelation, when that kingdom is set up, if you and I are in the body tonight, we're truly, genuinely born from above, we're going to rule and reign with Him over that glorious kingdom. So now I'll still say what I've said before, the kingdom is the kingdom is the kingdom. It's spiritual? Yes. It's physical? Yes. It's going to be set up on the earth, and when you read Isaiah chapter 11, the animal kingdom, you remember? We've read it, I think even here on television, how the wolf and the lamb will dwell together, and little kids are going to be playing amongst all these wild animals, that's physical. He's going to be King of kings and Lord of lords over the whole earth, that's what? Political, and yet it's going to be a kingdom of righteousness and holiness and sinlessness, no death, no curse, that makes it what? Spiritual. So the kingdom is all three wrapped up together, but it's still the one and only kingdom. All right, now then if you'll come back to Daniel with me. So as Christ the stone smites all these metals that make up this image, beginning with the feet, and they become like the dust or the chaff of a threshing floor that the wind can just blow away. In other words, everything that these metals are representing, and we'll see that in just a second now, is just going to be blown away, be nothing left of it. And then the stone becomes a kingdom, and I like to emphasize this in the last two or three words of verse 35, is that kingdom just going to be in the land of Israel? What does it say? The whole earth. Let me show you another verse. Turn with me to Zechariah. I've always got to follow this up with more than one Scripture, because you know I'm a stickler that you can't just take one or two verses and build a doctrine on it. Zechariah, that's the next to last book in your Old Testament, chapter 14. Now there are many other verses that say the same thing, but they're a little harder to find, so we won't take time for those. But in Zechariah chapter 14, and we know that this is in reference to the kingdom that will follow His second coming, because we almost have to go up to verse 1, I guess, in order to get the flow. "...all nations against Jerusalem to battle." What is that? Well, that's Armageddon. That's the last great battle. So that's what Zechariah is talking about. "...I'll gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken," that is Jerusalem. "...the houses rifled, and the women ravished, and half the city shall go forth." Then verse 3, "...then shall the Lord Jehovah go forth," that's the return of Christ, this is the second coming, "...and fight against those nations as when He fought in the day of battle." Then verse 4, "...and His feet," that is the Lord's feet, "...the same Lord that ascended in Acts chapter 1, and went back to the Father." Now He's coming, and where do His feet stand? On that same Mount of Olives that He left in Acts chapter 1. "...and His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem." See now, this isn't another Mount of Olives in heaven or anything like that, it's right here on the earth. And then you come on down verse 8, "...and it shall be in that day," that is accompanying the return of Christ to the Mount of Olives, to the land of Israel, to the city of Jerusalem, "...it shall be in that day that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem, half of them to the former sea," the Mediterranean, "...and half of them toward the hinder sea," or the Dead Sea, "...in summer and in winter shall it be." Now I'm not going to take time to go back to Ezekiel, but do you know what Ezekiel says? That when this river of water flowing from the throne room in Jerusalem back to the Mediterranean and down to the Dead Sea, and I think it'll even go on out to the Persian Gulf. But Ezekiel says that the Dead Sea will have every species of fish in it that the Mediterranean has now. In other words, it'll no longer be a saltwater sea, it's going to be living water. Now you ever get to Israel, and you get to the Dead Sea, nothing can live in it now, but the day is coming, and oh, I've got to show it to you in a minute. Let's look this one up, verse 9, then we'll go back to Ezekiel so you'll see what I'm talking about. But while you're here in Zechariah, let's read verse 9, "...and the Lord shall be king over all the..." what? Now isn't that plain? Where is this kingdom going to be? On the earth. All right, now let's go back to Ezekiel just for the fun of it. I do some of these things only for interest. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, isn't it? And I may even have to look just a second, I think it's around 37 or 38 if I'm not mistaken. Ezekiel, no, it's not 37, is it? 47. No, there's not that many. It's toward the end of Ezekiel, we'll find it here in just a second, because I want you to see it. Yeah, 47. You're right. Ezekiel 47. Now remember, this is another one of those books that's all prophecy spoken in symbolism, the one I mentioned here last program. Ezekiel 47, and he's speaking of a river coming out from underneath the sanctuary there at Jerusalem just as we saw back there in Zechariah, but now come all the way down to verse 10, "...and it shall come to pass..." In other words, when the Kingdom is set up and Christ has returned, "...it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it, and it shall come to pass, that everything that liveth which moveth with us, soever the rivers shall come, shall live. There shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither, for they shall be healed, and everything shall live, whither the river cometh. Now here it comes, "...and it shall come to pass, that the fishermen shall stand upon it..." That is the Dead Sea from En Gedi, all the way from En Gedi. Now when we get to Israel someday, we're going to go to the very little village of En Gedi. It's still there, right on the shores of the Dead Sea. Now prophetically now, the fishermen are going to stand there on the shores of the Dead Sea, now made alive with all the fish of the Mediterranean, "...from En Gedi even unto En Eglium. And there shall be a place to spread forth their nets. Their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea..." That is the Mediterranean, "...very many." Now you see, these are all physical elements of the Kingdom. And I've already alluded to Isaiah chapter 11, "...the wolf, and the lamb, and the bear shall all feed together." So this Kingdom that Daniel is prophesying now then, now let's go back to that. This Kingdom that Daniel is prophesying in chapter 2 will indeed be on the earth. It'll cover the whole earth, not just Palestine, and it's going to be a glorious earth. Everything is going to be productive. These are the verses everybody knows, "...and they shall beat their spears and their swords into..." What? Plowshares. Now what do plowshares do? Well, they prepare the earth for production. So there's going to be tremendous production. There'll be no want, there'll be no poverty, there'll be no famine. And it's a physical kingdom, but yet it's going to be a glorious spiritual kingdom because there's no curse, there's no sin. And like I said, it'll be political because Christ is going to rule over the planet. Now I don't see where...and I know people do, I'll never forget one of my kids went to a Sunday school class while he was at the university, and they happened to be talking about the Kingdom in Matthew, and he tried to tell them what he was referring to. And they about laughed him out the door, and they said, "...you mean a political kingdom?" I'll never forget when he called Sunday afternoon. And he said, "...Dad, how do I answer them when they just ridicule that there's going to be that kind of a kingdom?" I said, "...well, when people are blind, it's pretty hard to open their eyes, so it takes time." All right, now you're back to Daniel. Chapter 2, continuing on. Now he's going to interpret it. See, the Scripture always interprets for us. You don't have to go to seminary to learn how to interpret Scripture, that's what a lot of people think. They're the only ones that can interpret. Let the book interpret itself. Now verse 37, he says, "...thou, O king, art a king of kings," and indeed he was. We saw that when he could put all his magicians to death with just a word. "...for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, strength, and glory, and wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, hath He, the sovereign God, given into thy hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all." Now, he was an absolute totalitarian dictator king. He didn't have to consult with anybody to make a decision. His power was absolute. Now Daniel says, "...you're the head of gold." So what are we seeing in symbolism? Empires. Now let's move on down. Verse 39, "...and after thee," in other words, after Babylon rises and falls as all empires do, "...after thee shall arise another kingdom, another empire," but what's the word? Inferior. Now, when I first started teaching this years and years ago, this word bugged me. How does an inferior kingdom defeat a superior one? Well, militarily it just doesn't happen. It just doesn't happen. So what you have to look at as you look at this progression of metals, you go from what we normally think of as the most precious, the most expensive, to the next, to the next, to this, and then down to the least. And so the progression is from something great to something less great. And so this is why the prophet says that a kingdom inferior to Babylon would defeat them. Now, he wasn't talking about the military strength. He was talking about the political, and so I'm going to put that on this side, because here this head of gold was an absolute under God, of course, but he was a government of one. He didn't have to consult with anybody, as I've already mentioned. Then you come down to the kingdom that was inferior to him. We know that militarily... Now we're not going to finish this in this half hour, so I'm going to take my time and we'll just stop where we have to and continue on in the next half hour. But politically we know that the next kingdom that came on the scene and that defeated Babylon was the Mede and Persian Empire. Now, militarily they were already greater than Babylon, otherwise they could never have defeated them. But instead of having an absolute dictator of one, now you've got two kings who came together and it was Darius and Cyrus, the Medes and the Persians, and naturally before they made any kind of a move militarily, economically, or politically, what did they have to do? They had to agree. Now you see, it's a lot harder to get two people to agree than it is for one. Now read on the next verse, and then another kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. But you see, the flow is going to remain the same. Now we know that the next kingdom that came on from secular history was the kingdom of Alexander the Great of Greece. But just as soon as Alexander completed his conquest at the age of 33, he died, and what happened to his kingdom? Well, it was divided between four generals. So now your political flow is already picking up. Instead of having an absolute power of one, now you've got to have a consensus of two. Here you have to have a consensus of four. Now you come on down to the next great empire that comes on the scene, and that'll be the Roman Empire. Now even though we normally think of Rome as being governed by the Caesars, in reality what kind of a government was the Roman Empire? It was a republic. They depended on their senate and their representatives. And so here you have the seeds of, well, we'll just simply call it democracy. In its infancy, no doubt, but you see now politically what's happening? You're coming from an absolute, to a consensus of two, to a consensus of four, to a consensus of many. Now you come on down, which of course the legs of the Roman Empire, the East and the West. The East of course was capitalized in Constantinople, and the West stayed at Rome. But then as we come on down, let's read it now in the text. Verse 41, and whereas you saw the feet and toes, part potter's clay, part iron, the kingdom shall be divided, East and West. But there shall be in it the strength of the iron, for as much so iron mixed with clay. And the toes of the feet, part iron and part clay, the kingdom was partly strong, partly broken. And then you notice in verse 43 that with that kind of an admixture there was no real strength. Now we know that the Roman Empire passed off the scene in about the 300's, between 300 and 400 A.D. It just disappeared, the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. But in our own day now we're seeing the rise of that same geographical and political area, Western Europe, called the European Community, and it started out with ten nations, and it's been fluctuating, and it's going to end up again with ten nations, and we call it the revived Roman Empire, and these are the ten toes, ten nations. But again, as you see Western Europe today, it's an enlarged democracy, and democracies are weak. If people don't like the government, all they have to do is fill the streets and demonstrate, and what happens? Down it goes. It has no real strength, and consequently it's inferior. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time.