The Prophecies of Daniel - Part 2
I pray this new study finds everyone doing well and remembering to follow 1 Thes. 5:16 - Be Joyful Always
Well this week’s Bible study focused mainly on chapter 2 in the book of Daniel and utilized some cross references located in chapters 7 & 8 as well. For anyone that is unfamiliar with the book of Daniel, chapter 2 is all about King Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream and the interpretation that Daniel provided to him.
We are in the 2nd year of King Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. So Daniel and his 3 friends are still getting used to their new digs in Babylon. And the King has a dream that troubles him. He calls in his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers to interpret the dream.
By the way, you are getting the Mike Stansbury 2-minute recap version. Just read chapter 2, it won’t take long.
The ‘wise men’ only want to interpret the dream but Nebuchadnezzar wants them all to first tell him what the dream was and then interpret it or face being cut up into pieces. When the can’t, Nebuchadnezzar gives the order to have them all killed. Remember, Daniel and his 3 friends are among the group of wise men. The guards come to kill Daniel and his friends and Daniel asks for some time to come up with the dream. All 4 of them spend the night praying literally for their lives and God reveals the dream to Daniel. Side note: God answers all of our prayers, yes all of them. We need to accept when it’s not the answer we are looking for. He has a plan for good.
So Daniel starts telling Nebuchadnezzar about the statue that he dreamed of, letting him know that he was dreaming of things to come. There was a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron and feet of iron and clay. Then a rock that was not cut out by human hands came and smashed the statue on its feet and destroyed the whole statue. The rock then grew into a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.
Daniel then tells Nebuchadnezzar the interpretation. And it was probably a good move on Daniel’s part to let Nebuchadnezzar know that ‘the God of Heaven given you dominion and power and might and glory’ and Nebuchadnezzar was in fact the head of gold. From some of the information in chapters 7 and 8 we can put 2 and 2 together and learn that the chest and arms of silver was the Medeo-Persian Empire. The belly and thighs of bronze was going to be the Greek Empire. Feel free to cross reference chapters 7 and 8 with some of the history information that I emailed out last week.
Notice that in Daniel 2 the 2nd and the 3rd Kingdoms are passed over very quickly and the majority of the time spent is on the 4th Kingdom. That is the focus of the prophecy. Now the commonly taught principle is that the 4th kingdom, the legs of iron, was the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire had an western component that fell to the Huns in 476AD and an eastern component that fell apart from internal strife and simply ceased to exist around the mid 1400’s. It is then commonly taught that the feet of iron mixed with clay is the revived Roman Empire that we will see emerging in the end times. Rome will once again become a place of interest, and who knows, maybe the Roman Catholic Church would play some sort of role as well.
Well, after studying Daniel for several months now, I’ve come to the conclusion that the legs of iron and the feet of iron and clay don’t have anything to do whatsoever with the Roman Empire. Rome does not come into play, neither does the European Union. Personally, I don’t think the Roman Empire has anything to do with this chapter as well as any Bible prophecy that is yet to be fulfilled.
Stick with me for a little bit on this one.
Let’s look at the description of this 4th kingdom in Daniel 2:40-43 40 Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. 41 Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. 42 As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. 43 And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.
We’ll also look at the description of the 4th kingdom from chapter 7 23 "He gave me this explanation: 'The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it. 24 The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings. 25 He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time.
26 " 'But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. 27 Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.'
To keep it as brief as possible, we can see that the 4th kingdom is the one that is in power when Christ returns to this earth to establish his eternal kingdom. ‘time, times and half a time’ means 3-1/2 years. I am confident Daniel is talking about what we know as the Great Tribulation at the end of which Christ will return and His angels will get rid of Satan. That is the most exact period of time given in the Bible. Even though I know that prophetic gaps and dual meanings exist in scripture, I don’t see one in these verses.
So if this kingdom is the one in power at the end of the age, and Daniel is not told the name of the kingdom because God doesn’t feel that Daniel needs to know the details of the end of the age ( 8 I heard, but I did not understand. So I asked, "My lord, what will the outcome of all this be?" 9 He replied, "Go your way, Daniel, because the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end. – Daniel 12), what better place to look then in the book of the Revelation.
In just a few verses within chapters 17 and 18 I believe that we see the 4th kingdom revealed.
3Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. 4The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. 5This title was written on her forehead: MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. 6I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus.
In verse 12 we see that there will be kings that receive power for one hour and then will be destroyed by the Lamb. Then in chapter 18 we see:
1After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. 2With a mighty voice he shouted: "Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons
And
9"When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. 10Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry: " 'Woe! Woe, O great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!'
There are places in Isaiah 13 and Jeremiah 51 that talk of Babylon’s sudden destruction at the return of the Jesus so that he can set up his kingdom. After this Babylon will never be inhabited again. That has not been the case thus far in history. Even now as the rebuilding of Babylon proceeds there is a town of about 10,000 that exists there. It is Al Hillal, Iraq.
European resurgence with a European-Israeli conflict at the end of the age? I don’t think so. Europe, just like the United States is flat broke. Neither of us knows it yet. You cut off the supply of oil to the Far East and they would collapse just as quickly as we would, if not faster. If there is supposed to be a global currency at the end of the age…where do you think all the money is? The Middle East. That is where the conflict began and that is where it will end. Babylon is the city of this world. The only city mentioned more frequently in the Bible is Jerusalem. That’s God’s city. And if we know Christ as our personal savior, we will reign with Him in the New Jerusalem.
There were plenty of powerful kingdoms that were not mentioned in Daniel 2. The Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Philistines, just to name a few. For the last 50 years or so the United States has been a pretty powerful nation. They are not mentioned and I don’t see any reason to shoehorn the Romans into the prophecy. The kingdoms mentioned in the statue, I believe got their position on the statue when they controlled one place…Babylon.
I think that we will continue to see Babylon being rebuilt. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see the capital of Iraq move to Babylon in the near future. I could also see the UN pulling out of their headquarters in NYC and relocating. How quickly that could happen? Who knows? Who knows if it even will? But I wouldn’t be surprised at all.
Now here is the conclusion: Don’t spend too much time trying to figure out who the 4th kingdom is, because that is not the awesome part of Daniel 2. It’s the “ROCK that cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them… the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and fill the whole earth.”
The end of the chapter tells us that “the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.”
In Revelation 11:15 we read: 15The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever."
That’s the kingdom that I’m glad to be a part of. See when you look at the history lesson with the understanding that Daniel was writing decades before the Medes and the Persians came on the scene and centuries before Greece came to power you can get an understanding that God has it all under control from the beginning of time until now. Nations will rise and fall, but God has a plan for it all. Battles will be won and lost, but God has a plan for it all. Things will happen in your own life, and God has a plan for it all. And the best part is that He wrote down His plan for us to know. How cool is that.
Lord willing, next time we will start looking at what I feel is the greatest prophecy in the Bible. In Daniel 9 God reveals the exact day the messiah would come the first time and reveals the conditions surrounding His second coming.
Until next time, God Bless,
Well this week’s Bible study focused mainly on chapter 2 in the book of Daniel and utilized some cross references located in chapters 7 & 8 as well. For anyone that is unfamiliar with the book of Daniel, chapter 2 is all about King Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream and the interpretation that Daniel provided to him.
We are in the 2nd year of King Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. So Daniel and his 3 friends are still getting used to their new digs in Babylon. And the King has a dream that troubles him. He calls in his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers to interpret the dream.
By the way, you are getting the Mike Stansbury 2-minute recap version. Just read chapter 2, it won’t take long.
The ‘wise men’ only want to interpret the dream but Nebuchadnezzar wants them all to first tell him what the dream was and then interpret it or face being cut up into pieces. When the can’t, Nebuchadnezzar gives the order to have them all killed. Remember, Daniel and his 3 friends are among the group of wise men. The guards come to kill Daniel and his friends and Daniel asks for some time to come up with the dream. All 4 of them spend the night praying literally for their lives and God reveals the dream to Daniel. Side note: God answers all of our prayers, yes all of them. We need to accept when it’s not the answer we are looking for. He has a plan for good.
So Daniel starts telling Nebuchadnezzar about the statue that he dreamed of, letting him know that he was dreaming of things to come. There was a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron and feet of iron and clay. Then a rock that was not cut out by human hands came and smashed the statue on its feet and destroyed the whole statue. The rock then grew into a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.
Daniel then tells Nebuchadnezzar the interpretation. And it was probably a good move on Daniel’s part to let Nebuchadnezzar know that ‘the God of Heaven given you dominion and power and might and glory’ and Nebuchadnezzar was in fact the head of gold. From some of the information in chapters 7 and 8 we can put 2 and 2 together and learn that the chest and arms of silver was the Medeo-Persian Empire. The belly and thighs of bronze was going to be the Greek Empire. Feel free to cross reference chapters 7 and 8 with some of the history information that I emailed out last week.
Notice that in Daniel 2 the 2nd and the 3rd Kingdoms are passed over very quickly and the majority of the time spent is on the 4th Kingdom. That is the focus of the prophecy. Now the commonly taught principle is that the 4th kingdom, the legs of iron, was the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire had an western component that fell to the Huns in 476AD and an eastern component that fell apart from internal strife and simply ceased to exist around the mid 1400’s. It is then commonly taught that the feet of iron mixed with clay is the revived Roman Empire that we will see emerging in the end times. Rome will once again become a place of interest, and who knows, maybe the Roman Catholic Church would play some sort of role as well.
Well, after studying Daniel for several months now, I’ve come to the conclusion that the legs of iron and the feet of iron and clay don’t have anything to do whatsoever with the Roman Empire. Rome does not come into play, neither does the European Union. Personally, I don’t think the Roman Empire has anything to do with this chapter as well as any Bible prophecy that is yet to be fulfilled.
Stick with me for a little bit on this one.
Let’s look at the description of this 4th kingdom in Daniel 2:40-43 40 Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. 41 Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. 42 As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. 43 And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.
We’ll also look at the description of the 4th kingdom from chapter 7 23 "He gave me this explanation: 'The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it. 24 The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings. 25 He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time.
26 " 'But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. 27 Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.'
To keep it as brief as possible, we can see that the 4th kingdom is the one that is in power when Christ returns to this earth to establish his eternal kingdom. ‘time, times and half a time’ means 3-1/2 years. I am confident Daniel is talking about what we know as the Great Tribulation at the end of which Christ will return and His angels will get rid of Satan. That is the most exact period of time given in the Bible. Even though I know that prophetic gaps and dual meanings exist in scripture, I don’t see one in these verses.
So if this kingdom is the one in power at the end of the age, and Daniel is not told the name of the kingdom because God doesn’t feel that Daniel needs to know the details of the end of the age ( 8 I heard, but I did not understand. So I asked, "My lord, what will the outcome of all this be?" 9 He replied, "Go your way, Daniel, because the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end. – Daniel 12), what better place to look then in the book of the Revelation.
In just a few verses within chapters 17 and 18 I believe that we see the 4th kingdom revealed.
3Then the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. 4The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. 5This title was written on her forehead: MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. 6I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore testimony to Jesus.
In verse 12 we see that there will be kings that receive power for one hour and then will be destroyed by the Lamb. Then in chapter 18 we see:
1After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. 2With a mighty voice he shouted: "Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons
And
9"When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. 10Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry: " 'Woe! Woe, O great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!'
There are places in Isaiah 13 and Jeremiah 51 that talk of Babylon’s sudden destruction at the return of the Jesus so that he can set up his kingdom. After this Babylon will never be inhabited again. That has not been the case thus far in history. Even now as the rebuilding of Babylon proceeds there is a town of about 10,000 that exists there. It is Al Hillal, Iraq.
European resurgence with a European-Israeli conflict at the end of the age? I don’t think so. Europe, just like the United States is flat broke. Neither of us knows it yet. You cut off the supply of oil to the Far East and they would collapse just as quickly as we would, if not faster. If there is supposed to be a global currency at the end of the age…where do you think all the money is? The Middle East. That is where the conflict began and that is where it will end. Babylon is the city of this world. The only city mentioned more frequently in the Bible is Jerusalem. That’s God’s city. And if we know Christ as our personal savior, we will reign with Him in the New Jerusalem.
There were plenty of powerful kingdoms that were not mentioned in Daniel 2. The Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Philistines, just to name a few. For the last 50 years or so the United States has been a pretty powerful nation. They are not mentioned and I don’t see any reason to shoehorn the Romans into the prophecy. The kingdoms mentioned in the statue, I believe got their position on the statue when they controlled one place…Babylon.
I think that we will continue to see Babylon being rebuilt. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see the capital of Iraq move to Babylon in the near future. I could also see the UN pulling out of their headquarters in NYC and relocating. How quickly that could happen? Who knows? Who knows if it even will? But I wouldn’t be surprised at all.
Now here is the conclusion: Don’t spend too much time trying to figure out who the 4th kingdom is, because that is not the awesome part of Daniel 2. It’s the “ROCK that cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them… the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and fill the whole earth.”
The end of the chapter tells us that “the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.”
In Revelation 11:15 we read: 15The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever."
That’s the kingdom that I’m glad to be a part of. See when you look at the history lesson with the understanding that Daniel was writing decades before the Medes and the Persians came on the scene and centuries before Greece came to power you can get an understanding that God has it all under control from the beginning of time until now. Nations will rise and fall, but God has a plan for it all. Battles will be won and lost, but God has a plan for it all. Things will happen in your own life, and God has a plan for it all. And the best part is that He wrote down His plan for us to know. How cool is that.
Lord willing, next time we will start looking at what I feel is the greatest prophecy in the Bible. In Daniel 9 God reveals the exact day the messiah would come the first time and reveals the conditions surrounding His second coming.
Until next time, God Bless,
posted by blogawakening at 2:13 PM
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