THE KING IS COMING CHRISTIAN CH


	THE KING IS COMING CHRISTIAN CHURCH

DANIEL SERIES: GOD RULES SOVEREIGN IN THE KINGDOM OF MEN

Sermon II: History of The World In A Dream (Part I)

Text: Daniel 2: 1-43

Introduction:

I have people all the time tell me about their dreams and ask me what does it mean. My reply is simple, "I am not Joseph or Daniel. God has not given me that gift to interpret dreams. Dreams are only significant to the dream or the psychoanalyst. It has only been within the past one hundred years that dreams have been scrutinized carefully. Sigmund Freud began the first comprehensive study of dreams, giving rise to a whole field of psychoanalysis.

While it is true that God in times past spoke to people in dreams when they were asleep and vision when awake. For example, He appeared to Solomon in a dream and told him he could ask for whatever he wanted (1 Kings 3:5). He gave Joseph the ability to interpret dreams, and Jacob dreamed about a stairway between heaven and the earth with angles walking up and down. Peter, wide wake in the hour of prayer on a roof top
Was given a vision a sheet with every type of four footed beast (Acts 10:11-12).

Nevertheless, we see that God did not limit His speaking through dreams to His children. He also spoke to pagans. But of all the dreams recorded in the Bible, this is the only one that gives us a full view of world history, in one brief glimpse. As we examine the dream I want us to make some observations about history then and now. First, note:

I. The Burden Of A Guilty Conscience (2:1).

Daniel and his friends had been going to Babylon University for a few years now. We have a king secure on his throne and all his enemies subdued or in captivity. But he has a case of royal insomnia. Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, "Conscience does makes cowards of us all." But for a person with no conscience, such as, Nebuchadnezzar, one would think he could sleep so peacefully. But the God who rules sovereign in the kingdoms of men interrupts the kings sleep with a dream. Nebuchadnezzar was the first Gentile king to be ruler of the known inhabitable word of that time. So it is no coincidence that the nature of his dream is God's plan for the times of the Gentiles.

You may ask, what are "the times of the Gentiles?" The Lord Jesus spoke of this period in Luke 21:24 - "Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Since the Babylonian captivity Gentiles have had significant control of the world and Jerusalem has been under Gentile occupation. As such, this dream is unfolding the history of these periods.

Nebuchadnezzar is so troubled by his dream that he calls all his magicians, astrologers and sorcerers to tell him the dream (v. 2). Like many dreams we awake and have forgotten them, although they troubled us. The king forgot his dream, so he ordered this group of cult practitioners to tell him the dream and interpret it also (v.5), or he would have them executed. But if they could tell him the dream they would be rewarded.

Notice what they tell the king (2:9-10).

Why do some people read the Bible and not understand it at all? Why do some people find something new and wonderful every time they read it? Because of 1 Cor. 2:14.

Here stood the religious leaders of Babylon, but they could not unlock the revelation of God. They were out of their league so-to-speak. But Daniel here on earth had connections with heaven. He was able to bring heaven to bear on the king's earthly issues. Second observation:

II. Satan Enters The Picture (2:12-13).

Daniel wasn't even around when the king called in his cabinet of incompetent religious leaders. But the death penalty was never the less on Daniel as well. There was more than a violent temper that accounted for this decree. He was a man working under satanic control, and Satan wanted to rid the world of Daniel and his three friends. He did not want their God and their religion to influence this Babylonian ruler. A man that determines not to compromise his faith usually gets Satan's attention. Are you feeling the hot winds of adversity and persecution, because you have refused to compromise your faith in certain situations? Daniel did?

Daniel and his three Hebrew friends they studied astrology with the magicians to understand it, not to believe it. Just as theological students today may study evolution to understand it, not to believe it.

Satan's magicians studied the stars, and connected with them, but they knew nothing of the One who created those stars. Daniel on the other hand, had no real connection with the stars, he was connected with the One who created the stars, and Satan hated him and wanted to destroy him. Third observation:

III. Making Friends With The Executioner (2:15-19).

When the king's cutthroat executioner burst into Daniel's house, ready to drag him to the gallows, he was greeted graciously. Daniel already problem knew why he was there, after all bad news travels fast. Daniel invited Arioch to sit down and talk things over (v.15). Daniel by calmness and politeness had won his way into the heart of Ashpenaz and now Arioch. How I would like to handle each crisis with such self control and calmness as Daniel does.

When the king's own men asked for a stay and more time, the king refused. But when Daniel asked (v. 16), he was granted time to tell the king the dream and the interpretation. Daniel was not trying to stall for time to look up answers in a dream manual, consult the stars or the nearest psychoanalyst, but to do what he always did. Pray to the God who answers prayers. So Daniel called his friends to pray and join him in seeking God's answer (2:18-19).

The best the astrologers could do was seek the stars; while Daniel sought the one who made the stars. It is not only useless but dangerous for Christians to dabble in astrology or to believe their daily horoscopes. Astronomy is a science, astrology is a false religion.

God revealed the dream to Daniel (2:23). Fourth observation:

IV. The King's Dream Is No Longer A Secret (2:25-28).

Interestingly enough, Arioch tried to take credit for this whole thing: "I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make know unto the king the interpretation" (v. 25).

When the king asked Daniel about the dream, armed with the wisdom of God Daniel used the opportunity to show how foolish it is to trust in astrologers (v. 27-28). Daniel knew where his wisdom come from and he gave God the glory. Fifth observation:

V. World History Unfolds In The Kings Dream (31-44).

Daniel begins to relate the dream to Nebuchadnezzar, with dark circles under his eyes, his head propped up by his hands, tired from lose of sleep, Nebuchadnezzar probably says, "That's it Daniel, I now remember the dream. You are right in your details."

The history written here was not written by Will Durant or Edward Gibbon, but God himself.

Israel, God's own people, except or a remnant. Had literally pushed God aside. They had said, "We don't want you to rule over us." So God allowed the pagan Gentile rules to move into center stage. From Nebuchadnezzar's perspective he dream was a picture of human achievement. But from God's perspective, the dream is a picture of the transfer of world's power from the Jews to the Gentile rulers.

We are living today in the times of the Gentiles. Israel is, to this time, being trodden down by Gentiles, but there is a time coming and it may be soon, when God's focus will again be on Israel.

A. Babylon, the golden kingdom, was literally saturated with gold. When Herodotus, the historian visited Babylon one hundred years after Nebuchadnezzar, he wrote that in all his life he had never seen so much gold. Nebuchadnezzar lived in more luxury than any other king since Solomon.

As Daniel began to unfold the dream, Nebuchadnezzar was lifted up in pride, thinking that he had accomplished all this. He did not understand he was not a self made man; he stood in his position of authority only because the God of heaven placed him there. The Psalmist has said, "For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge, he putteth down one, and setteth up another" (Ps. 75:6-7).

History gives us the perspective as to how remarkably accurate the Word of God is in prophetic detail. Follow the description of this statute.

B. Medo-Persia, the kingdom of silver. When we read about the hand writing on the wall in Chapter 5, this second kingdom will be more fully revealed. Notice two arms of silver in this image. It indicates the divided nature of this second empire. The Medes and Persians together, history records that they strong armed Babylon into submission.

C. Greece, the kingdom of brass, that would rule over the whole earth. Alexander the Great conquered more land and kingdoms than any other general. But died at Babylon at the age of thirty-three years old, from excessive dinking and exhaustion.
Greece is represented as the kingdom of brass. During Alexander's lifetime, his soldiers under his command were dressed in bronze and brass helmets, breastplates, shields, and swords. The Belly and thighs of this image represents Greece.

D. Rome, the kingdom of iron and clay. In school when we read abut Rome it was referred to as the iron legions of Rome, and of course, history bears witness that Rome was the ruling empire after Greece. Fifty years before Jesus was born, the Roman Empire came into existence, and it continued in power even after Christ's earthly ministry. In the Book, The Decline of The Roman Empire, Gibbon's wrote, "The empire of the Romans filled the world, and when the empire fell into the hand of a single person , the world became a dreary prison for his enemies. To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly."

It was the Roman rule that put Jesus on a cross and imperialistic Rome ruled ruthlessly throughout the world in the early days of the church. There has been no other world empire since Rome. We are living today in the aftermath of the Roman Empire.

But we are on the verge of that revived Roman Empire, from those ten toes, which will represent a confederation of ten nations. But we are told those toes were made of iron and clay. And one thing we know for sure iron and clay don't mix, there is no cohesiveness to hold it together.

Some ask, where is America in all this. We simple do not see America in prophecy. She will have collapsed or no longer be strong enough to be reckoned with as a power. We see that right now in our own time, America is quickly declining as the nation all other nations looked to for guidance. Sixth observation:

V. The Miracle of Prophecy.

When Nebuchadnezzar this dream, Persia was a Babylonian vassal state, the Greeks were a group of warring tribes, Rome, was a village on the Tiber River. There is no human way he could have seen what God was going to do as those Gentile kingdoms unfolded in the future. Only God can accurately bring into fulfillment prophecy, as history has so often recorded.

What does all this mean to us?

Application:

First of all, it teaches us that something we already know, and that is that human government stands on a delicate foundation. While the statute was comprised of gold, silver and brass, it stood on a mixture of pure mud. As we have watched government after government collapse over the past 20 years, we know that human governments are built on unstable foundations of humanistic ideas, which are unpredictable weak, when they are not supported by God.

Second thing we learn, is that human governments are deteriorating. The statute represents the descending scale of value from gold to clay. Each kingdom was built on the ruins of the other. The world is not getting better is getting worse. For example, the metals - from gold to silver to bronze to iron are all deteriorating. The specific gravity of gold is 19.3, silver is 10.5, bronze is 8.5, iron is 7.6, and clay is 1.9. What a striking proof of what happens when everything human gets off the gold standard. Which America did years ago, now our dollar has very little value any more, because it is not backed by gold, only an empty promise.

There is hope, as human governments crumble and deteriorate we are told of a rock "cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands - a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and gold to pieces" (Dan. 2:45). This is the Lord Jesus Christ coming in His glory to destroy all world governments, and like a mountain, fill the whole earth, and set up his government that will have no end.

Next week we will government when Christ rules the world, and we hear those wonderful words: "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ>" (Rev. 11:15).

LET'S PRAY!