Take your Bibles, if you will, please, and turn to Daniel chapter 2. The larger series of studies that we are in is the Bible’s story of salvation. We’re trying to track that through in many of its different dimensions. For now, we are parking for a little while in the book of Daniel. I appreciate your encouragement with it last week. I’m not sure we will cover the entire book, but we will cover a good bit of it at least in today, chapter 2. Daniel chapter 2, the title of the message, “Our God Reigns.”
I will take the time to read through the entire chapter.
“In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams. His spirit was troubled and his sleep left him. Then the king commanded that the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans be summoned to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king, and the king said to them, ‘I had a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream.’ Then the Chaldeans said to the king in Aramaic, ‘O king, live forever. Tell your servants the dream, and we 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. But if you show me the dream and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. Therefore, show me the dream and its interpretation.’
They answered a second time and said, ‘Let the king tell his servants the dream and we will show its interpretation.’ King answered and said, ‘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.’
Chaldeans answered the king and said, ‘There’s not a man on earth who can meet the king’s demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of his, any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. 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.’ Because of this, the king was angry and very furious, commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed. So the decree went out, and the wise men were about to be killed, and they sought Daniel and his companions to kill them.
And Daniel replied with prudence and discretion to Arioch, the captain of the king’s guard who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon. He declared to Arioch, the king’s captain, ‘Why is the decree of the king so urgent?’ And Arioch made the matter known to Daniel. And Daniel went in and requested the king to appoint him a time that he might show the interpretation to the king. And Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Hananiah, Mishael, 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.
Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven, and Daniel answered and said, ‘Blessed be the name of God forever, 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 to Arioch, 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 Arioch 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 said to Daniel, whose name is Belteshazzar, ‘Are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation?’ Daniel answered the king and said, ‘No wise men, enchanters, magicians, 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 he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these to you, O King. As you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be after this, 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 of the living, but in order that the interpretation may be made known to the king, and 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. The head of this image was fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly iron, 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. And 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. Now we will tell the king its interpretation.
You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom of the power, the might, the glory, and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the children of men, the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, making you rule over them all, you are the head of gold. Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze which shall rule over all the earth. And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these. And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom. Some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, 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.
And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all 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, 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 sure.’
Then Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and paid homage to Daniel and commanded that an offering and incense be offered up to him. 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.’ 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. Daniel made 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.”
Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, this is a fascinating portion of Scripture, strange in many ways, but fascinating and certainly in its final climax, exciting with prospect. We ask this morning that you would take your word and by your Spirit bring it to our minds and our hearts. Help us to come with greater appreciation now to the greatness of our God who reigns and give us lively hearts of expectation, anticipation of a great kingdom to come. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Verse 1 dates this event for us, the second year of Nebuchadnezzar. That would be the second year of his reign. That would be about 603 BC. Remember, we saw last time that Nebuchadnezzar had sacked Jerusalem about the year that he was made king; his father died. So this would place us about a year and a half into that three-year training time that we read of in Chapter 1, when Daniel was being groomed with his friends to become advisors to the king. Daniel is still a relatively young man, perhaps in his late teens, perhaps 20.
Verses 2 and following, we have the beginning of this remarkable event. The king has some troubling dreams. He can’t sleep, and so he calls for the wise men, the Chaldeans, to come and interpret it for him. Now he calls them here the magicians, the enchanters, the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans. That’s in verse 2. In verse 13, they’re called the wise men, more the general term for them. This is where a wide variety of men interested in dreams, interested in astrology, interested in magic, also in books—usually this was a mechanical kind of art. You tell me the dream. I go to the books, and I study, and I learn what this means, and what that means, and the other. I bring it all together, and I give the interpretation of the dream. Of course, in all of this there are many charlatans and much superstition as well, but there were some honest Magi as well who inquired after truth, and Daniel was being trained as one of these. You might remember 600 years later, some of these Magi show up at the birth of Jesus, and it just may be that this is the lingering results of Daniel’s faithfulness at this time.
Well, in verses 2 and following, the king wants to know the meaning of the dream. So the advisors respond to us, “Tell us the dream and we’ll interpret it for you.” Now in verse 4 it says they spoke to him in Aramaic. That’s a little signal. Actually at this point, it doesn’t seem to mean a lot, but it’s a bit of a signal. Remember I said that a large part of the Book of Daniel is not written in Hebrew, but written in Aramaic. It’s written in Hebrew up to this point. Verse 4 marks the beginning where it’s written in Aramaic. And then after the end of chapter 7, beginning in chapter 8, it picks up with Hebrew again. But that’s the signal we have here, then, that this is in Aramaic. And that is significant because all of these dreams and visions and prophecies that we find now in chapters 2 through 7 have to do not just with Israel herself, but with the nations at large.
And we find in verses 5 and 6 then that the king departs from what was evidently the custom and tells them, “You not only must tell me the interpretation of the dream, you have to tell me the dream itself.” And of course the wise men are not too happy about that. Some have conjectured here that it’s one of those dreams that you have—you ever wake up in the morning where you’re just disturbed from an awful dream? And you say, “Oh, I had an awful dream.” And your wife says, “Well, what was it?” “I don’t know. I forgot.” Someone suggested that’s what’s going on here, that the king forgot the dream. And so that’s why he wants them to tell. That just may be possible. I rather think, though, that he had not forgotten the dream. And in fact, verse 9 seems to indicate that, that he is pressing these men to give him a true interpretation. That is to say, this dream was so bothersome to him, he doesn’t want any mistake about it. “I want you to tell me its meaning, and just so I know you’re not making something up on the spot, you tell me the dream itself, and then give me the interpretation, and I’ll know that it’s true.”
And with that then he gives some both positive and negative incentives. When you are an autocrat, when you are a tyrant king like Nebuchadnezzar was, you can do that. “You tell me the dream and its interpretation, I’ll make you a rich man and very powerful and influential. You don’t, you’ll be in pieces and your house and family will be gone as well.” Well, this is quite a crisis then in verses 7 and following. The wise men are just aghast. Nobody can do this. No king anywhere has ever asked such a thing. How could you ask this of us? No great king anywhere has ever made such an outlandish request that we actually tell you what was in your head and then the interpretation. This is just not fair. The king responds in verses 12 and 13. “Yeah, you’re just trying to buy time. I’ve said what I’ve said. You give it to me or else.” They can’t, and so he orders their execution.
Verses 14 and following then, we have a picture of Daniel, which is a remarkable picture for such a young man, the remarkable poise that he has. He speaks with Arioch, the captain of the guard, surely a rough dude of some kind, and yet Daniel, when he speaks to him, he’s obviously not smart-alecky, overly confident, self-confident, but poised and confident in such a way that impresses him. And so the captain of the guard brings him to Daniel, and we find in verses 15 and 16 first, just blurred over here, but first a conversation between Daniel and Arioch, and then this conversation between Daniel and the king, and then the king allows Daniel time to go back and to figure out what the dream was.
So then in verses 17 and following, Daniel goes back and he speaks with his three friends and they pray to God for mercy. God reveals the dream to them, gives him the interpretation. They respond then in verses 20 and following with another prayer, this time a prayer of thanks and praise, praising God for His greatness who can do such a feat as that. And then in verses 24 and following, Daniel goes to Arioch, then he goes to the king, and Nebuchadnezzar asks him, “Are you able to make known the dream?” Interesting, by the way, that when, in verse 25, Arioch brought Daniel before the king in haste and said to him, “I have found among the exiles from Judah a man who will make known to the king the interpretation.” “I have found,” taking a little bit of the credit here; all he is is a messenger.
King asked Daniel, “Are you able to tell me the dream and its interpretation?” And what’s interesting next is that Daniel does not say yes. He answers and says, “Nobody can do that. I’ve got something to say, but understand it’s not because of anything about me, but there’s a God in heaven who can understand and who can know these things and make them known to His servants. He has told me the dream and its interpretation.” And then verses 28 and 29 give us something very significant. It tells us now right up front that this dream has to do with a succession of events yet to come. In verse 29, you’ll notice the expression, “after this.” So this is something that is to come after now. But in verse 28, it uses the expression, “the latter days.” What will come in the latter days? Now that expression, it’s here in Aramaic, but the rest of the Old Testament in Hebrew, consistently it is used with reference to the age to come. And so he’s telling him here, “I will tell you now that your dream has to do with things that will come after you. Specifically, then, it will have to do with the age to come.” So we’re having a long-range view of things here.
Then in verses 31 through 45, he gives the interpretation of the dream. Verses 31 and following just the dream itself. And it’s just a fantastic dream. And he describes this great image, this statue that the king saw in his dream. And he gives a general description first. And notice the way he describes it in verse 31. It’s great. That is, it’s very large. So think an enormous statue of some kind. It’s mighty. That is, it’s powerful, it’s strong. That is, whoever this represents, he has his own way. He’s a mighty something, a monster of some kind. And exceeding brightness. I suppose that is reflective of the fact that it’s made up of these various metals and the light shining off of it. It’s exceedingly bright. And it says it stood before the king. So evidently it’s a man-like figure standing before the king, the statue. And it says it’s frightening. Well, that’s the way it’s translated in my version, the ESV. Some of you have the NIV. It’s translated “awesome.” That captures, I think, a part of it. The Aramaic term here has to do with that which is fearsome, makes you afraid. So it’s not just wowing him, but it’s a frightful kind of a scene. And the king sees this, he’s startled by it, and that’s why then he is so bothered by it all.
And then next, in the following verses, he describes the metals that made up the image. You have this head of gold, this chest and arms of silver, you have the middle and the thighs of bronze, and then you have the legs and the feet of iron, but the feet are iron mixed with clay. The clay is obviously a potter’s clay. It’s baked clay. It’s brittle. So the image itself is great. It’s mighty. It’s strong. It’s fearsome. But at the bottom, it is strong, but it’s also mixed with something that makes it brittle and fragile. And then verses 34 and 35, this stone that is cut without hands. Verse 45 tells us it’s out of the side of a mountain. So image here, see this big boulder cut out of a mountain without hands. That is, this is a work of God. A boulder comes off the mountain, smashes the image at the feet, breaks them in pieces, and in fact grinds the whole statue to powder. And it says it not only breaks it up, but it breaks it like the chaff in verses 34 and 35—like the chaff that the wind drives away. You can’t read that without thinking of Psalm 1, right? “The wicked are not so, but like the chaff which the wind drives away.” It’s a fantastic image of what God will do in judgment. It’s used other times in Scripture as well.
Picture the old, the ancient world, the threshing floors that they would have. They’d bring in the grain and they’d go with a shovel or a pitchfork of some kind and pick up in this pile of grain and toss it into the air and the wind blow the chaff, the little tiny husks off of the side. They go off to the side and they’re blown away, maybe gathered up and put in the fire, but the seed falls into the pile. And that, he says, is what is going to become of this great image. This boulder will be cut. It will smash it at the feet, grind the whole statue to powder, and it will be destroyed.
Now We Will Tell The King Its Interpretation
Well, then in verses 36 and following, he gives us the interpretation. Now I’ll tell you, he says, what God says it all means. It’s immediately evident that the image, though one, one image, is an image that consists of successive kingdoms, kingdoms with extraordinary rule. Verses 37 and 38, we have the head of gold. And Daniel says to the king, “Nebuchadnezzar, that’s you. Babylon.” Kingdom of Babylon was a massive, mighty kingdom. King Nebuchadnezzar, as we mentioned last week, was a remarkably efficient king as well as powerful. He ruled over the whole Mediterranean world. You remember we saw that he had defeated Assyria to the north. He defeated Egypt to the south and drove them all the way down to their own borders. In fact, here in Daniel 2 and also in Ezekiel 26, Nebuchadnezzar is called a “king of kings,” just reflective of his immense power and authority. Babylon was not the largest of all these kingdoms that will be mentioned, but it was powerful and it was efficient. Nebuchadnezzar was one of the great rulers of the ancient world, aside from his tyranny, disregard for human life and decency. He was a man of great building skill and consolidating his empire, as well as a man of great military might. So the gold head, he says, that’s you, Nebuchadnezzar. That’s Babylon.
And then this image has a silver chest and silver arms. That is the next kingdom that will come. As we find out later, that will be the Medo-Persian kingdom to succeed Babylon. You remember, those of you who’ve read the book of Daniel, the famous story in chapter 5, where Belshazzar has his great feast and he’s basking in his own glory. And then a handwriting appears on the wall: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. What in the world does that mean? Daniel’s called again. It means your days are numbered. Your kingdom is divided and you’ll be killed this night. And that night, despite the impregnable walls of Babylon, Medo-Persia is led in through a secret gate, and comes in and takes over, and Belshazzar is killed.
The next kingdom is this kingdom of bronze, the middle and thighs of bronze. That, as it turns out, is the kingdom of Greece. We’ll find out more of that in chapter 7 as well. This is a massively powerful kingdom. Medo-Persia was larger even than Babylon; Medo-Persia was a massively powerful kingdom, but now Greece comes along. It’s more powerful and swift in its power. You’ve studied, no doubt, somewhere along the line in your history studies of Alexander the Great and the amazing swiftness of his defeat of the whole ancient world in this area. He now has defeated Medo-Persia. So there’s the gold head. That is Babylon. There’s the silver chest and arms. That’s Medo-Persia. There’s the bronze middle and thighs. And that, of course, is Greece. And it says here that he rules over the whole earth. The enormously expansive kingdom of Greece.
And then last, we have the legs of iron. And that, as it turns out, will be the kingdom of Rome, the Roman Empire. Iron is, of course, the symbol of strength. In each of these metals you have a decreasing value, but an increase of strength. And now we come to the iron legs. Two legs—there might be some significance to that. The Roman Empire ruled in both Asia and in Europe. But a massively powerful kingdom crushed everything in its way. The legs, the strongest part of the body, might be significant there, but showing that Rome’s power then is massive, and as I say, even on two continents.
But then verses 41 to 43, the feet and the toes mixed with iron and clay, baked clay, potter’s clay. So although this image is massively strong, the feet on which the statue rests are partly brittle. Now this might tell us that Rome’s weakness then was twofold. There was weakness, we read, in her diversity. Places of the empire, like Syria and Asia Minor, were not loyal to the Roman Empire. They were a point of trouble for the empire. There’s disunity, and because of that diversity, it made Rome somewhat brittle. Edward Gibbon, in his famous Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, puts the blame somewhere else: that Rome fell finally because of its moral decadence. It was given over to hedonistic pleasures, licentious in the extreme, and finally just fell apart of its own playtime. That might be what’s going on here, but ultimately the defeat of this last kingdom, we are told, comes from the outside.
Verses 44 and 45, this great stone is cut out of the mountain without hands. And that’s interpreted for us then to be that the God of heaven sets up a kingdom that will never be destroyed. And just as that stone in your dream came and crushed that enormous statue, so the kingdom of God will come. And when it comes, God will smash all rival kingdoms and break it into pieces and it alone will stand forever.
On verses 46 and following then we have the king’s response. Clearly there’s no God like this. “Truly your God is a God of gods and Lord of lords and reveals mysteries.” And he promotes Daniel over the whole province of Babylon. And you just can’t miss, can’t help but see the contrast between the early part of the chapter and the end of the chapter. At the early part of the chapter, the king is threatening to kill Daniel. At the end of the chapter, the king is on his face before Daniel.
Now to understand this in its full significance, we have to, I think, understand something that’s a standard feature in biblical prophecy, and that is what’s often called prophetic foreshortening. I call it prophetic extension or something like that. The idea is that often in Old Testament prophecy, a prophet will tell of what’s to come, and when it tells of what’s to come, it’ll say, “this is going to happen, and this is going to happen, and this is going to happen.” But what you find is that “this is going to happen” is a long time before “this that’s going to happen.” There’s a foreshortening. It just sees the mountain ranges, as it were, and doesn’t discuss the big time gaps in between.
The most obvious example of this is in the many Christmas prophecies that we even sing at Christmas time in our Christmas carols. Often the prophets will talk of the coming of this promised Messiah. He will come. And then it begins to describe the effects of his works. And it describes it in universal terms that will not be fulfilled until the end when Jesus comes again. Psalm 98 is an example of that. We sing “Joy to the World” that Isaac Watts wrote from Psalm 98. We have the singing praise of joy that the Lord has come. And then we start singing about He’s come to take away the curse, to bring joy as far as the curse is found. Well, that hasn’t really happened yet. And that will happen in the Eschaton. We see that foreshortening. It’s standard issue in biblical prophecy. In my opinion, it’s one of the most common mistakes that is made by interpreters in not recognizing that—to see that there’s a “now” and a “not yet” and an extended fulfillment of prophecies that are given.
Well, we have that here in Daniel chapter 2 as well. In chapter 2, verse 44, we read, “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed.” Well, the days of those kings, I think, obviously is Rome—not all along through Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, but the time of Rome, which takes up in itself all the previous kingdoms. So this kingdom is coming in the days of those kings. This would put us now at the first century. But then in verse 28, we are told it has to do with the latter days, the age to come. And in fact, in verses 44 and 45, it has to do with the kingdom of God, which everywhere in the prophetic Scriptures has to do with the age to come. And then also in verses 44 and 45, it has this kingdom of God destroying all other nations and the dominance of God’s kingdom worldwide, which obviously has to do then finally with the end of time associated with the return of Christ.
So we have this broad view going on here, and I think there’s something of a hint of that here in the verses themselves. Verse 44, “In the days of those kings,” that’s first century now, Rome, “the God of heaven will set up a kingdom.” He’ll establish it. That has to do then with the inauguration of the kingdom of God. Everywhere in the New Testament that is associated with the incarnation, the death, the resurrection, the ascension of Jesus is that mystery aspect of the kingdom. God’s kingdom has been established; it has been inaugurated, but it is not visible except to the eyes of faith from those whose eyes have been illumined to see it. So in verse 44, “in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom.” There’s the inauguration of the kingdom. “That shall never be destroyed. It will break in pieces all these kingdoms.” That’s the consummation of the kingdom. So we have the inauguration of the kingdom of God in the first century, and then it looks all the way to the end and the consummation of the kingdom of God, when in the Day of the Lord, God comes, takes center stage, and rules over the entire world.
Now it leaves a question my way of interpretation: how then do we understand Rome as in view as the kingdom that’s destroyed by the boulder in the end times? And this has spawned several different kinds of interpretations. When I was a kid, I often would hear that it has to do with the reconstituted Roman Empire in the last days. And we were very excited to see that the Common Market of Europe had nine and then ten member countries. That’s the ten toes, we are told, of this statue—which worked until there were eleven, and then twelve, and now, of course, the European Union is twenty-some countries. Well, that didn’t work too well. That kind of evidence is a little thin to build a whole interpretation on. It’s just kind of difficult to work it. I think better we could say that this Rome that’s in view here is the continued—not the reconstituted, but the continued—Roman Empire as it resulted in the Western nations. I think that’s a very possible interpretation. Or then others simply take it as symbolic of the continuation of world kingdoms until the coming of Christ. Don’t have time to sort all that out. But the point then is that during the fourth kingdom, God will establish His own kingdom. And in His time, that kingdom will destroy all rivals, it’ll dominate the entire earth, and it will last forever. The long view—already it’s been encompassed more than 2,000 years.
All right, there’s Daniel chapter 2. Now why did Daniel write that? What’s the point of all of that? What’s he trying to tell us? What is important here for us? And I think there are two lessons that we are intended by Daniel and by God Himself to take away from this chapter, at least two.
God Reigns Over All History
Number one, God reigns over all history. This vision with its broad outline of history, with all of the successive kingdoms involved, is meant to tell us and to show us in graphic kinds of pictures that God rules over all the nations. God rules over them all. We saw that last time in Daniel chapter 1 and verse 2, where we are told that the Lord gave Jehoiakim into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. This was not just an accident of history that Nebuchadnezzar sacked Jerusalem. The Lord gave Jehoiakim into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. Well, we have that same emphasis here in Daniel chapter 2.
Look at verses 20 and 21. The vision is, or the dream is, revealed to Daniel. Daniel responds in prayer, and notice what he emphasizes. “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.” That’s Daniel’s take from it. He sees the succession of events and the first takeaway is God is at work over all the nations. And when we see the succession of nations one after another after another, what we ought to see is God at work in His rule over all history.
We find the same thing in verses 37 and 38. “You, O King,” this is where Daniel is giving the interpretation of the dream, “You, O King, the King of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the might, the glory, and into whose hand he has given, wherever they are, the children of men, the beasts of the field, the birds of heaven, making you rule over them all.” That’s the same thing that’s emphasized again in verses 44 and 45—when this great kingdom of God comes and destroys all rival kingdoms and the kingdom of God dominates the entire earth, destroying all rivals and lasting forever. And in fact, it is the takeaway that Nebuchadnezzar himself has in verse 47. The king answered and said, “Truly your God is a God of gods and a Lord of lords.” Did they say that no one can reveal this dream but the gods? Well, here is the God who can, and here’s the God who rules over all the nations. That’s the point.
God reigns over all history. This passing of world dominance from one kingdom to another to another is not just an accident of history. And Daniel says that to Nebuchadnezzar, verse 37: “All your military success, all your kingdom prosperity, your wealth—you boast of it as though you’ve accomplished it by your own strong arm.” And the lesson that he will have to learn is that God has given it. That’s what verse 37 says. God has given you this. All of the might and the rule and the power, that is given to you from God. That’s a lesson that Nebuchadnezzar will have to learn in a terrible way, you remember, in chapter 4—that God rules over the nations and even over you, Nebuchadnezzar.
One of my favorite passages describing this is in Isaiah chapter 40. There the prophet describes this very setting, that God is going to send Israel away into exile, but then he offers that word of comfort, the so-called “book of comfort” in Isaiah. As you’re sent away into exile, God is still God. He has not been defeated and left in Jerusalem. God is still God over the nations, and He will bring you back, and He still has a purpose that will be accomplished. And in Isaiah chapter 40, he describes this “God over the nations” theme in graphic kinds of terms. In Isaiah chapter 40 in verse 15, he says, “Behold the nations”—now here he gives two comparisons—”Behold, the nations are a drop from a bucket and are accounted as the dust of the scales.”
The drop of a bucket. That’s not me dropping the bucket. It’s looking at those old days when you go to the well and you get a bucket of water. You go back to the house with it; a little slops out over the side. Nobody cries over that. It’s nothing, it’s just a drop, a drop of a bucket. That’s what the nations are—it’s a drop of a bucket. Or better, they’re like the dust of the balance, a dust of the scales. We do a little bit with scales today still—the meat market, candy shop, whatever, take your pick—and you go up and you take your meat to the counter and they go put it on the scale. I doubt that many of you have ever said, “Wait, wait, wait, there’s some dust on that scale. Okay, now it’s going to affect the weight.” You don’t do that because dust is nothing. God says the nations are like the dust of the balance; it’s just nothing. If that’s not impressive enough, Isaiah goes on in verse 17 and says, “The nations are counted as less than nothing.” Now that’s a fascinating statement. The only time I have ever seen “less than nothing” is in my checkbook. But here God looks at the nations of the world—think of it from our perspective, the vast nations and empires of the world—and God says to him, “They’re less than nothing.”
And that’s the point here in Daniel as well. And Nebuchadnezzar seems here in chapter 2 to be sensing some of this. That’s why he’s so bothered. He has this dream, and it’s a fearsome image, and he’s troubled by it. There’s something foreboding. He feels threatened by it. It seems to depict the successive events that will come, but it seems out of his control. And then Daniel comes and gives the interpretation of these successive kingdoms, and Nebuchadnezzar, mighty though he is, is left as a spectator. He just kind of watches and sees what God is going to do with him. And Daniel pushes it. God gave you that dream just to tell you and the world what He plans to do with the nations. He has given you that kingdom, and when He is done, He’ll give it to Medo-Persia. And when He’s done with Medo-Persia, He’ll give it to Greece. And when He’s done with Greece, He’ll give it to Rome. And eventually, His own kingdom is just going to destroy all of them, and He’ll dominate the entire earth.
In other words, God can reveal this dream to me, not just because He knows what goes on inside your head, although that’s pretty impressive. And God can reveal this dream to me, not just because He knows the future, although that’s pretty impressive too. But God can reveal this dream to me because He’s the one who wrote the script. And He’s directing the entire affair according to His own will. That’s verse 37 again. Everything you have is given. The kingdom, the power, the strength, the glory—it all belongs to God. And if you have it, it’s because He has given it. You think you’re building your legacy. God has given you that. And when He is done, He’ll give it to someone else. And when He’s done with him, He’ll give it to someone else. When He’s done, He’ll give it to someone else. And each of you along the way will strut as though you’re to be credited with your own success. And in fact, it is in this very context of strutting kings and competing kingdoms that God will establish His own kingdom, that in His time will dominate the entire earth. And in fact, it is by means of these strutting kings that God will establish His kingdom.
Mighty Babylon, the Third Reich too,
Join the dust of empires that have passed away.
Full of strutting pride, mouthing boasts untrue,
They lie crushed before the God whose word holds sway.
Surely all the nations are dust upon the scale,
So with whom will you compare this God whose will prevails?
That’s the first lesson from this chapter. God is God over history. It’s not just a lesson about history. It’s a lesson about God. God is God over history. Nebuchadnezzar was slow to learn it. He’ll learn it again in chapter 3. He’ll learn it again in chapter 4. We’ll see it again and again. Nebuchadnezzar was slow to learn it. Kings and presidents and tyrants and dictators of all kinds ever since have been slow to learn it. America has long forgotten it. We strut as though we are not accountable to God. We deny that He reigns. We deny that we’re accountable to Him. We deny that we’re even made by Him. We imagine our independence. But you know what? God is not nervous over any of it. In fact, you know what He’s doing? He’s sitting in the heavens and laughing. This is just tiny man shaking his infinitesimal fist in the face of the infinite, almighty, universal sovereign.
Whoever would have thought that mighty Babylon with its impregnable walls could ever be overthrown? Whoever would have thought that Medo-Persia, with its massive power, could ever be brought down? Whoever would have thought that Greece, with all of its massive power, could ever fall apart? Whoever would have thought that Rome, with all of its massive crushing power and grip, could ever fail? Whoever would have thought that the British and the French empires would have fallen? Whoever would have thought that the Soviet Union would crumble? You see, at some point, you’ve got to see that in all of this, God is having His way with the nations. He is directing all affairs to His own ends. That’s verse 21. He changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings. God rules over the affairs of history. Don’t ever let that thought afflict you that somehow some nation or people or movement has gone one inch beyond the divine control. That’s the first lesson. It is not a lesson simply about history. It is a lesson about God who rules over history.
God’s Kingdom Will Prevail In World History
And that, of course, then leaves the second lesson of the chapter, which just lies on the face of it. And that is not only does God rule over all history and over all the world, but secondly, God’s kingdom will prevail in world history. God’s kingdom will prevail in world history. Not only does God rule over all the world, even evil kingdoms, but one day He will exercise that rule in such a way that every eye will see it. And all will know, in the words of Daniel, that there’s a God in heaven who works according to His own will in the affairs of men. A kingdom’s already been established, but right now it’s visible only to the eyes of faith. But one day, every eye will see it.
God gives authority and standing to this nation and He gives it to the next, and He gives it to the next, and He gives it to the next. And each nation in turn does its own thing. And each nation in turn struts as though it’s to be credited with its own success. Each nation in turn refuses to acknowledge the God who gave it. And one day God will be done with all of them. And when He’s done, they will all be crushed. It’ll be like a boulder cut out of the side of a mountain and smashing that statue. And God will establish His own king. And every knee will bow before Him.
And that king is the king that He sent previously. The world wouldn’t have Him. They put Him on a cross and they crucified Him, and thereby established His very kingship. There the Lord Jesus took the sin of the world to Himself. For all of His people bore the curse, God’s wrath against sin. And having exhausted the curse, God raised Him from the dead—kingdom accomplished. And when He gave Himself in the place of sinners, He crushed the head of the adversary, removed the whole ground of his world authority and wrested the kingdom from him, took it away. And now He offers that kingdom to all who will come and bow before Him.
And one day He’ll come again. And when He comes, those who are His will welcome Him with shouts of triumph and unimaginable joy. And those who refused Him—mark it, they will bow too, and they’ll be crushed beneath Him. And this stone that the builders refused will become the chief cornerstone. Or in the words of the Apostle John, “The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and forever.”
Brothers and sisters, we need to know this. The rampant kind of advance of evil that we see all the time around us seems to be uncontrolled. It seems to be out of check. We struggle and try to hold the line. And sometime we can feel bullied, can’t we? “Come on, get on board. Don’t you see the way the wind’s blowing? Get on the right side of history.” If you ever feel pressured by that kind of talk, it’s because you’re not looking far enough ahead. We do know what side of history is going to win. And we want to take that side now and joyfully bow before King Jesus and be there to welcome Him when he comes in glory to bring His kingdom to consummation.
These are the major themes that we find in the book of Daniel. We’ll see it over and we’ll see it over again. God rules over history. This is His world. And God’s kingdom in His time will dominate forever. Amen.
Let’s bow for prayer. Our Father, what great truths these are for us to know, to rest in. What a great comfort it is to know that our God is God over all, and what a great joy it is to anticipate the coming of His kingdom. Lord, until then, we pray that You would keep us faithful in serving Him. We ask in Jesus’ name, Amen.
In closing this morning, let’s take our Trinity hymnals together and turn to number 217. We’ll sing, “Hark! The Loud Bursts of Acclamations, Hark! Those Loud Triumphant Chords, Jesus Takes the Highest Station, O What Joy the Sight Affords, Crown Him, Crown Him, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” Let’s stand together and sing this together. Number 217.