Daniel 2

Open your Bible to Daniel. Here on Wednesday night, we're going through the Old Testament and we are currently in Daniel chapter 2, so I'm going to have you turn there with me please. Daniel chapter 2, as we get started tonight. Let's pray. Father as we dig into your word this evening we pray for your Holy Spirit to lead us. As always, Lord, we are very conscious of our great need of you Lord whenever we dig into the scriptures. It is you, through your Spirit who enlightens our hearts and brings wisdom, and we pray that you do that tonight Lord. As we go through this chapter, we ask Lord that you would speak to us and give great wisdom. Be with us we pray Father, in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Daniel chapter 2 begins by saying,

(ESV) I'll stop you there for a moment because it, even though it says that he commanded all of his magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, we know that Daniel and his Hebrew friends were part of that group. They wouldn't have used those terms to describe themselves, but they were still considered part of them. But it appears that Daniel and his friends were not called in, in this group to talk to the king about the dream. And we'll see that later in the chapter that Daniel hears about this later on and inquires as to what's actually happening. But I want you to notice how this all plays out. So king Nebuchadnezzar gets all these individuals around him who are supposed to be wise and have these abilities to look into things like dreams. Verse 3,

Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon • ccontario.com • ©2023 interpretation.” 5 The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, “The word from me is firm: if you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you shall be torn limb from limb, and your houses shall be laid in ruins.” Now, stop there for just a moment, please. Nebuchadnezzar was many things, stupid was not among them. He knew that if he told these guys his dream that it wouldn't be all that tough for them to fabricate some reasonably good sounding argument to say, “well, this is what your dream means, and this is the interpretation.” Because who's going to know? I mean, who would know? Somebody, you tell them your dream and somebody goes, well, I know what that means, it means blah. Who's going to argue and say, no, that's not what it means. So in this interesting sort of a situation, Nebuchadnezzar says, you guys are all wise and have some kind of supernatural insights, great, wonderful. Yes, I want you to interpret my dream, but I'm not going to tell you my dream. I want you to tell me the dream and then tell me what it means. Well, as you well know, I mean, how would you like to be in that sort of a situation? And as you can well imagine, they were flabbergasted that the king even asked them that sort of a question. And that's one of the problems with dreams and interpreting dreams. I got to tell you, I get notes pretty often from people who tell me they've had dreams and they'll even go into great detail telling me what was in their dream, and then they want me to interpret it for them, and I'm like, yeah, that's not what I do. I mean, I'm a Bible teacher, but I don't interpret dreams. Here's the thing, I don't deny that God can give dreams. In fact, we know, or we're told that in these last days that dreams are going to be given to people and they might, and they're even going to be on the increase. Let me show you a passage on the screen from Joel chapter 2. This is one of those prophecies that says,

And so these, when somebody says, “I think I've had a dream from the Lord,” you can't just reject it out of hand. But here's the thing that we have to remember about dreams, when God gives someone a dream, He's not going to leave them in question of what the dream means. In other words, dreams are given by God. We see this in the scripture, to pass along vital information that

Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon • ccontario.com • ©2023 He wants them to know and He wants them to understand. He doesn't give dreams to confuse people. In this particular situation, we're going to learn as we go through the chapter, that God is going to give the interpretation, in fact, the understanding of the dream and the interpretation to Daniel. Why? Because He wanted Nebuchadnezzar to know the information that the dream conveyed. It wasn't meant to be a mystery that just caused him frustration and great confusion. So, when people write to me and they're confused and they're frustrated because they had a dream and they have absolutely no idea what it means I usually tell them, well, there's two possibilities; your dream is from the Lord, or it's from the pizza you had the night before. So, it's your responsibility to go before the Lord and bring it to him and say, Lord, is this from you? And if so, reveal the meaning of this thing so I can have understanding. It's God's responsibility, you see to convey the meaning of a dream. It's not yours and it's not mine. But here's the problem, when people don't feel like they've gotten anything from the Lord, they start to do in their own interpretation. They start to come to figure, well, I think this thing there means, and that's… Let me tell you something, that is a very slippery slope because we start coming up with our own ideas and as far as I'm concerned, any dream that is unclear or is ultimately not interpreted, given an interpretation from the Lord, is not from the Lord. Because again, God gives dreams to inform. The people I've heard that had genuine dreams were left in no question as to what the dream was about. I've actually received notes from people from foreign countries who have had, raised in a country where Christianity is all but unheard of, and yet they've had dreams of Jesus and through those dreams have come to Jesus and made Him Savior in Lord of their lives. Well, it was very clear, for those people what the dream was all about, it was all about embracing the work of Christ on the cross and making Him the zsavior of their lives. They weren't left with any question. So Nebuchadnezzar goes on, verse 6, “But if you show the dream (in other words, if you tell me what I dreamt) and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. Therefore show me the dream and its interpretation.” 7 They answered a second time and said, (well, okay, fine) “Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show its interpretation.” (they’re still going at it) 8 The king answered and said, “I know

--- Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon • ccontario.com • ©2023 with certainty that you are trying to gain time, because you see that the word from me is firm— 9 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.”” This is really, frankly, smart of Nebuchadnezzar, it really is. I have to say, I have to kind of give him, credit here. “10 The Chaldeans answered the king and said, “There is not a man on earth who can meet the king's demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean.” And what they're saying is true and Daniel, who is going to tell him his dream and the interpretation is going to actually repeat the same thing. He's going to say to the king, “no man can do this, but there's a God in heaven who gives dreams and can make the dream meaning known.” Verse 11, “The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.” Or in other words, is not among man. Well, “12 Because of this the king was angry and very furious, and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed. 13 So the decree went out, and the wise men were about to be killed; and they sought Daniel and his companions, to kill them. 14 Then 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. 15 He declared to Arioch, the king's captain, “Why is the decree of the king so urgent?” Then Arioch made the matter known to Daniel.” See, that tells you right there, Daniel wasn't in on this call to go in before the king. Apparently there were groups of his wise men and enchanters and magicians and so forth, and he didn't call all of them. So Daniel had to be filled in on exactly what had gone down in this situation. Verse 16, “And Daniel went in and requested the king to appoint him a time, that he might show the interpretation to the king. 17 Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, 18 and told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.” All right, so he kind of calls a prayer meeting of his buds, and they get together and seek the face of God. “God, we need you to show this to us so that we don't fall under this sentence of death given by the king.” ---

--- Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon • ccontario.com • ©2023 Then verse 19, we love this, “Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. (Daniel answered and said)

“24 Therefore Daniel went in 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.” 25 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.” 26 The king declared to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to make known to me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation?”” I want you to notice Daniel's answer. I probably would've changed this up a little bit, but he said, he answered the king and said, “27 Daniel answered the king and said,

I probably would've reversed that. I would've started off by saying, well, there's a God who can do it. I can't, just because I would be afraid that he would've thrown me out before I got to the second part. But anyway, that's just me. So, I want you to notice what he says there and we're not finished with verse 29, but did you notice what we just finished reading where he says “there's a God”, verse, excuse me, verse 28, I'm sorry, “but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, (and here, this is important) and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days.” Okay, “what will be in the latter days.” Now, not all of this prophecy that is given, this vision, the interpretation of this dream involves the latter days, but some of it does. And that is why Daniel says what he says. He ends verse 28 by saying, “28 Your dream and the visions of your head as you lay in bed are these:”

Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon • ccontario.com • ©2023 Now verse 29,

…” That's what I was saying earlier, God gives visions and dreams so that the interpretation may be made known, all right? And he says,

Now, can you imagine being Nebuchadnezzar, having had this dream? He obviously still remembers fully, clearly what the dream was all about. He may have had it multiple times and he has been looking for someone in his kingdom who can tell him what he dreamt without any hint or previous understanding, and Daniel begins to lay it out. And he says, this is what you saw, “you saw this incredible image with great brightness and it was frightening.” And you can imagine that Nebuchadnezzar is on the edge of his seat waiting to hear the rest of it. Now, as we go through and read this next section, I want to put a slide up on the screen and we're going to, you're going to see this for the most of the time that we have remaining here this evening in this chapter, because this image is essentially a recreation of what this statue could have very easily looked like that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream. And you're going to hear descriptions of the statue and then Daniel is going to give the interpretation of those descriptions, and I wanted you to have it on the screen here so that you can follow along as we go through these. ---

Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon • ccontario.com • ©2023 But let's keep reading in verse 32, shall we? Here we go,

Again, can you again, can you imagine Nebuchadnezzar? This man has just told him everything about his dream. He says, “and this was your dream.” But he goes on in verse 36 to say, “…Now we will tell the king its interpretation.” All right, so, now you can see that image and you can kind of, you'll be following along here. But what I want you to know going into this is that what you see on the screen behind me (refer to the image on this page) is, essentially a depiction of what we call, because Jesus referred to it as “the times of the Gentiles.” This is what Nebuchadnezzar was given. In fact, let me just go away from that image for a moment and show you where Jesus said in Luke 21:24, Jesus said,

Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon • ccontario.com • ©2023

All right? Now this period that we call the “times of the Gentiles” began in 605 B.C. when Nebuchadnezzar came in and essentially conquered Jerusalem and overran the city. And it continues, and this is kind of the exciting part, the times of the Gentiles continues today. We are still in the times of the Gentiles, and we will be until Jesus returns and establishes His kingdom on the face of the earth. Now, there's been some shifting to this times of the Gentiles. In other words, in the late 1940s, we know that Israel once again became a nation. So that was a shift, however, they are not in complete and total control of their land, as you well know. They've been under domination by other countries, and even to this day, they are a mix of Palestinian and Israeli living in that same area. And so, the times of the Gentiles continue even up to this day. Now we're going to learn about the times of the Gentiles and the progression of the kingdoms of the Gentiles as we go on here and listen to Daniel's interpretation. We're in verse 37, so look with me in your Bible.

So as you look at the chart/image on the screen, (refer to the image on the page 7) you see that, that head of gold represents Babylon, and you might be interested to find out, it wasn't that terribly long ago, we went through the book of Jeremiah. You might remember that Jeremiah actually referred to Babylon as a “golden cup in the Lord's hand.” (Jeremiah 51:7) So that reference to the gold representing Babylon is a significant one. Now, what do we know about gold? Well, it's worth a lot, it represents splendor, but it's also a very soft metal. And one of the things you find as you go through these various metals that make up this image, is that they get increasingly worth-less, I should say, they have a decreasing worth, but increasing strength. So gold is wonderful and you know great splendor is attached to it, but it's a fairly weak metal. Even so, you can probably imagine what it was like for Nebuchadnezzar to hear Daniel say “you oh king are the king of kings for now, and God has given you dominion over all man, and even the birds and the beasts

Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon • ccontario.com • ©2023 of the field, He's given you dominion.” Can you, would that mess with your head at all if you heard that? I mean, it probably would me. I'm thinking if somebody told me, “you are the man Nebi (Nebuchadnezzar)” and we're going to find out in the next chapter that it actually is going to go to his head. So we'll deal with that. But notice he says in verse 39, he says, “Another kingdom inferior to you (and that’s inferior in splendor) shall arise after you, …” Now, we don't have to wait to find out what this is all about because we know what nation conquered Babylon, what empire. It was the Medo-Persian empire. In fact, Daniel lived long enough to see that happen. He was still there in the Persian kingdom when the Medes and Persians came in and overthrew the Babylonians, but they are represented in the image as the chest and arms of silver. Not quite as splendid as gold, but a little bit stronger. We're going to see how that plays out. I'll explain how that strength plays out in just a minute. We're still in verse 39. He goes on to say, “…and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth.” Now, this you guys, as you can see on the list, (refer to the image on the page 7) is the Grecian empire. Greece, which rose up and conquered the Medo-Persians and flourished under the military leadership of Alexander the Great. Some of you remember your history from high school or maybe even early college, where you learned about Alexander, and he was an amazing military conqueror who died very early, very young man when he passed away. But that is the empire that is next represented there in the statue with that bronze. Verse 40, notice this now, “And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. …” Notice that, all things are shattered by the iron. Why? It's the strongest, it's the strongest metal. It's the least expensive or should I say splendorous perhaps, but it is strong. And he says, and “like iron”, here at the end of verse 40, “…And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these.” So this is Rome, the empire of the Romans. Much less in splendor than the kingdoms that came before it, but tough as nails and in its, substance and military might. Now let me explain to you a little bit about the interesting fact that we know historically about these metals that increase in strength, but decrease in splendor. Do you know that the Babylonian kingdom, it rose to power and it stuck around for a mere 66 years? And that's why Daniel was there when the Babylonians were overthrown by the Medes and the Persians. Now, the Medo- Persian empire represented by the silver is a little bit stronger metal, but they stuck around for 208 years, all right. (refer to the image on the page 7) Now the

Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon • ccontario.com • ©2023 Grecian empire stuck around for about 185 years, very similar to the Medo- Persians, but the Roman empire, which is that medal that is the strongest and crushes all the rest, lasted for more than 500 years. So you can kind of see how these things are represented and you also know that the Roman empire was still in power in the world when Jesus came on the scene and during the time of His public ministry. In fact, it was the Romans who conquered Jerusalem, just like the Babylonians did. Came into the city, destroyed the city, razed the temple to the ground and of course, Jesus prophesied that destruction of the temple in A.D. 70. So, we have these Gentile nations that start with the Babylonian empire, Medes in the Persians, Grecian empire, Roman empire, spanning all these areas up to the time of Christ and beyond. But now we come to the final part of the statue. Look at it with me in verse 41 in your Bible it says,

This is fascinating, and it actually gives us, tells us quite a bit about this final kingdom that Nebuchadnezzar is shown in his dream. And he's told that the feet and the toes are made up of an amalgamation of iron and soft clay, which of course doesn't work. They won't adhere to one another. And so, wherever there is soft clay, the iron is not going to be able to hold and, in fact, the clay robs the ability of the iron to hold together. So, at whatever point the iron is met with clay, it is at that point that the two elements cannot be joined strong, in any sort of a strong sort of a way, all right. So I, we're all sitting here and we're waiting, and you'll notice that I don't have an explanation up on the screen. And I did that on purpose because I wanted to kind of make this a little bit of a cliffhanger, at least for a couple of minutes. (refer to the image on the page 7) Because the real question is what does this represent? What kingdom, what empire, what nation is being spoken of here by the image of the feet and the toes of the statue. Well, I'm going to give you what I believe is a correct interpretation of this, but in order to do it, first I need to explain something to you. You need to understand that in the Old Testament, the church and the church age does not

Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon • ccontario.com • ©2023 appear, and I've said this to you many times throughout the years. The church age began during that period of time that we read about in Acts chapter 2, where the Holy Spirit fell on the assembled believers, Peter got up and preached an incredible evangelistic message and in one day, 3,000 people were added to the church. That was the inauguration, if you will, of the church; the body of Christ. It began at that point and we ushered in a new era. We ended that period of time for Israel and now we enter into what we call the “church age.” And we're going to talk more about this when we get deeper into the book of Daniel. But, I want to remind you of something, the church does not appear in the Old Testament. God doesn't prophesy about the church. He talks about salvation that will be ours, but He doesn't talk about the body of Christ. He doesn't talk about specifically about this new entity that Paul makes reference to in Romans that is made up of Jew and Gentile. This one new man, if you will, that is, where Jew and Gentile no longer matters and so forth, all right? That isn't mentioned in the Old Testament. In fact, there's a very simple image I want to show you up on the screen that we refer to as the mountain peaks of prophecy. And this might give you at least an image, an illustration to help you understand a little bit about what the Old Testaments could see and what they couldn't see.

Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon • ccontario.com • ©2023 They, of course, saw anything that the Lord told them related to Israel, and they also saw the first coming of Messiah. They saw His second coming and they prophesied many times about His, the millennial age or what we call the “Messianic” or “Kingdom Age,” which will be that 1,000 year period of time following the great tribulation. They saw that, that's in the Old Testament, we'll talk about it. We'll deal with it here in the book of Daniel later on. But what they could not see is the church age that we are currently in, that has now been going for some 2,000 some years, all right. So, given that this idea is true, that prophecy skips over the church age and then continues after the church age. And after the church is caught away, if you will, now we come back to say what are the feet and the toes of the statue shown to Nebuchadnezzar? Well, I believe that it refers to the controlling world powers that will be during the time of the great tribulation, and you might say, well, are there any correlating or corresponding things in the statue itself that would lead you to believe that? Well, again, I'm led to believe that because again, the church age is not seen in Old Testament prophecy, but I want you to, I find it very interesting to take note of the fact that with these 2 feet there were 10 toes. And it's very interesting that in the book of Revelation, John is given a picture of this controlling power that begins to take over during the time of the great tribulation and he refers to it as “a beast that emerges out of the sea that has 10 horns.”

And it is largely believed that vision that John sees in the book of Revelation relates to a 10 nation federation or a federation, if you will, of 10 nations that come together under the auspices of Satan, if you will and he who is essentially the anti-Christ and will rule during the time of the great tribulation. We also know that those nations will not be very tightly wound together. There will be division among them during that time. So it frankly is a perfect match for the 10 toes of the statue's feet. So once again, my belief is that these, the feet and 10 toes represent that time period that makes up world power during the great tribulation. Now we come to the portion of this that makes reference to the latter days. Remember Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, “it refers to the latter days.” Look at verse 44, and this is an interesting statement. He begins here by saying, “ And

Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon • ccontario.com • ©2023 in the days of those kings…” What kings? Well, we just got done talking about the feet, we just got done describing the feet with the 10 toes. And now Daniel says, “in the days of those kings”, what happens? In other words, during the time of the great tribulation, “44 …the God of heaven (he says,) will set up a kingdom that shall 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, 45 just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand,…” In other words, this is not going to be purely a human ruler or a human kingdom, it is a divine kingdom. And he goes on to say, “45 … 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.” So, this last imagery is kind of exciting because it speaks to us of the Messianic kingdom. He's talking about this stone or rock, if you will, that his hewn out of the mountain, rolls down the hill, hits the statue. Where? On the feet, hits it on the feet. That's critical too, for I think, understanding that the feet represent the kingdoms of the world during the time of the great tribulation. And he says, and it says, “all of the other kingdoms that are kind of absorbed into this, are now destroyed as well.” And by the way, we shouldn't be surprised at all that the Kingdom of Messiah is illustrated to us here by a stone because a stone or a rock is often used in the Bible to speak of God and particularly speak of Messiah. So we are given here the information related to that period of time when Jesus Christ returns to the earth. I was meeting on Monday with a group from Florida by a video chat who had just finished my study in the book of Revelation and they wanted to have a video meeting as kind of a final meeting and one of the questions they asked was, “when is the second coming of Jesus Christ?” “We want to be clear about that, is it when He comes for the church or is it when He comes to earth?” And that's a very common question. The second coming of Jesus is when He comes to earth, when He returns at the end of the great tribulation. The rapture is when Jesus comes for his church to catch away the bride, but He doesn't come to earth when he comes to receive his bride. The Bible says very clearly, we are caught up to meet Him in the air, right, in the clouds.

Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon • ccontario.com • ©2023 So, then we are with the Lord and then we return with the Lord later to the earth, and that is what we call the second coming of Jesus Christ. All right, so important that we get those terms kind of straight. Now we finish off the chapter here, verse 46, interesting, “46 Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face and paid homage to Daniel, and commanded that an offering and incense be offered up to him.” It doesn't say whether Daniel objected to this. I imagine he probably did, but we're just, we're not told, in this particular section. “47 The king answered and said to Daniel, “Truly, your God is God of gods and Lord of kings, and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery.”” So, Nebuchadnezzar is duly impressed with everything that Daniel has revealed to him. So, making good on his promise, verse 48, “ Then the king gave Daniel high honors and many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon. 49 Daniel made a request of the king, and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon. But Daniel remained at the king's court.” So this is a wonderful chapter, but it's also incredibly insightful for helping us to understand that period of time once again that Jesus referred to as the times of the Gentiles. And we see that God is sovereignly in charge, that's the one takeaway. When I read this chapter, if I am convinced of anything, when I get done reading, it's that God knows, God has a plan, and God has seen that plan through to the end. There's also another kind of interesting sort of a picture that we get from this interesting statue. Whereas evolution would kind of suggest to us that things always get better, we see these kingdoms of man devolving if you will and in splendor at least, and ultimately destroyed by the King, the true King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So that's where we're going to stop for tonight. Daniel chapter 2, we're going to pick it up in Daniel chapter 3 next time, Lord willing, and we'll have some good stuff to go through. Yeah, these are such great chapters and can you see also how the Lord prepared Daniel and his friends from Daniel chapter 1 with that issue of the food, how he was preparing them to trust him. And there would come times in the future and God knew it, when they would be called upon and the need would be great, and their lives would be on the line, and they would need to trust the Lord and to say, “God, only you can save us, only you can bring us through this time, you're the only one who can do it.” So do not despise

Calvary Chapel Ontario, Oregon • ccontario.com • ©2023 the small challenges that come into your life, the Lord is teaching all of us to trust in him with all of our hearts. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much tonight for giving us this insightful chapter. As we see here Lord, that you know the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end, and how we can look back historically and we can see exactly what all of those different elements of that statue represented in past history. Even though Daniel was revealing these mysteries during the time of the very first kingdom. Lord, I thank you that your plan cannot be thwarted, that your sovereignty cannot be overruled. And that your purpose in all of these things will finally come to pass. Meanwhile, Father God, we trust you, we determine tonight to put our trust in you and our hope in you to believe that you have a purpose still and a plan still that you are carrying out for your people. And Lord until this age ends, this church age when you come and receive your bride, we pray that you would make us faithful and true to what we know from the scriptures, what you've revealed to us and what you are doing in us to form Christ in our hearts and minds. Father God, meanwhile, I pray that we would be busy doing the work that you've given us to do and that we would be faithful in all these things to serve you with a whole heart. We ask that you would guide and direct us, and we ask it in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and our Lord, amen.