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July 3, 2016 |
| Statue Prophecy Focused | ||
The book of Daniel contains a lot of stories that are good for children, the fiery furnace, the lion's den, and others. These stories also portray the faith and character of the people and so are also valuable to adults. But Daniel was primarily a prophet.
His style was very much like the book of Revelation and is complementary in that it fills in some of the blanks in Revelation. His prophecies frequently cover long periods of time and usually the entire period of human world government. This differs from Isaiah whose prophecies tend to be glimpses into specific points of time.
We covered all of chapter 2 in a lesson from 2011. In this lesson we will focus on the prophecy described symbolically in chapter 2, and dive down to the depths of that. The basics of this prophecy are easy to understand and, because it sweeps through time, it is mostly fulfilled and we can see how it was fulfilled. There is, however, more to be seen.
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We begin in the chapter where Daniel begins to describe the king's dream to the king.
28 "However, there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the latter days. This was your dream and the visions in your mind while on your bed. 29 As for you, O king, while on your bed your thoughts turned to what would take place in the future; and He who reveals mysteries has made known to you what will take place.
These verses tell us how everything got started. How it was so important to the king that he understand this dream and how he wanted to be sure he got the right interpretation of it. How the lives of his wise men would be endangered for that. How God would make himself known to the king and would make Daniel the representative of God. All of this began with the king wondering about the future. The verses don't say, but looking at what God revealed it seems likely that the king was wondering about the future of his kingdom.
31 "You, O king, were looking and behold, there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and of extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was awesome. 32 The head of that statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34 You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
36 "This was the dream; now we will tell its interpretation before the king. 37 You, O king, are the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength and the glory; 38 and wherever the sons of men dwell, or the beasts of the field, or the birds of the sky, He has given them into your hand and has caused you to rule over them all. You are the head of gold.
Daniel refers to Nebuchadnezzar as the king of kings. This will be important to understanding the prophecy in the statue. A king of kings is a king who has conquered other kings and made their kingdoms part of his kingdom. This will be one of the requirements for a kingdom to be included in this statue and a reason why some are not included.
Daniel also says that God has given him dominion over everything. This is something Christians need to understand. God has raised up these kings and kingdoms and requires that we show them the respect they deserve. Of course this doesn't extend to obeying them when they command us to do something against God.
Nebuchadnezzar was the gold head in the statue, the most valuable part of the statue. But this is interesting because the Jews after this time would always refer to Babylon as being a terrible place and a land of idolaters. In fact, Peter will use the word Babylon as a metaphor for sinful Jerusalem (1 Peter 5:13).
Daniel also says "You are the head of gold" as he speaks to Nebuchadnezzar but the statue will actually describe a succession of kingdoms, not kings. This is a common principal in prophecy and reflects God's view. A kingdom is both a group of people and a king. They cannot be separated. The king is bound to rule his people with love and justice and the people are bound to respect and obey their king.
This view of kingdoms is seen in the beasts described in later chapters of Daniel and in Revelation. They represent kingdoms and at the same time, kings.
39 "After you there will arise another kingdom inferior to you …
This inferior kingdom, represented by the silver chest and arms, was the Medo-Persian Empire. But history records them as being a just kingdom and through Isaiah God mentions supporting King Cyrus in his conquest of the known world. In fact, it was that king that let the Israelites return home from their captivity.
To our way of thinking this inferior kingdom was greater than the Babylonian kingdom. Its kingdom was larger, it was wealthier, it lasted longer, and it was more just. But plainly God measures the value of a kingdom differently than we do.
39 "… then another third kingdom of bronze, which will rule over all the earth.
The third kingdom (bronze) is generally accepted as the Greek Empire. In the eyes of man this empire brought in freedom and democracy, a golden age. It brought in an age of thinkers like Plato. But in God's eyes it was of less value than the previous kingdoms.
Daniel also says this kingdom will rule over all the earth. This is actually true of all of the kingdoms represented in the statue and it is a requirement to be included in the statue. But it isn't literally true of any of them in that none of them ruled over the entire face of the earth or even all of the people on the earth. The statement means that they ruled over everything that was worth ruling over.
40 "Then there will be a fourth kingdom as strong as iron; inasmuch as iron crushes and shatters all things, so, like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these in pieces.
Most people accept that the fourth kingdom is the Roman Empire. Daniel describes it as being the strongest of the metals. This was very true of the Roman Empire. They tolerated nothing and crushed everything that got in their way.
In human eyes the Roman Empire was the greatest. Their feats of engineering last until this time. Their empire was the largest and wealthiest. Their form of government remains a model in our time. Apparently God sees things differently.
41 "In that you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but it will have in it the toughness of iron, inasmuch as you saw the iron mixed with common clay. 42 As the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery, so some of the kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle. 43 And in that you saw the iron mixed with common clay, they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery.
The long legs of iron are commonly thought to represent a long period of time during which the Iron empire rules. The Roman Empire did last longer than the others but it did not end in anything that people have been able to relate to clay being mixed in to it. The 10 toes are a symbolic description of a government made of 10 kingdoms but the Roman Empire did not end as a "10 toed" government.
The 10 toes match the 10 horns of the end-time beast's empire from both Daniel and Revelation (Revelation 17:3). Therefore it is believed the toes on the statue represent the end-time and therefore the statue, from head to toes, represents all kingdoms from the Babylonian to the last of the manmade kingdoms. One of the things the statue describes is the passage of time. Each kingdom comes in sequence from head to toes.
It's an interesting question to ask why these kingdoms are represented as a succession of metals rather than as separate beasts with horns. Later in Daniel and also in Revelation, kingdoms are represented as beasts. The reason has to be that God is telling us something different about these kingdoms. We'll discover that meaning now.
We know we are not in the "toes of Iron and Clay kingdom" because there is no current kingdom that is structured that way. We know we are not in the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, or Greek kingdoms. We might think we aren't in the Roman kingdom either but notice that the Roman kingdom of Iron continues right on into the toes. Therefore we live either in the time of the "Iron kingdom", the "Iron mixed with Clay kingdom". To determine which, we need to understand Clay better.
Daniel does not explain Clay other than to say that it is brittle, but that may tell us more than we think. But to dig out that understanding we need to think of it the way people in Daniel's time would have thought of it. If something made of metal is dented it could usually be reshaped. We do this in our time when fixing cars that have been in wrecks. If something made of metal was smashed too badly it could be melted again and made into something new.
This is not true of anything made from pottery clay. If it breaks it cannot be reshaped or remolded and is not useful for anything. In our time we have glues that can sometimes bond broken pottery together. Sometimes there are too many pieces for gluing or some pieces are missing. When glue can be used, unless it is done by a very skilled person, the cracks will always be visible.
I think that is the key to understanding not only clay but the statue as a whole. Each successive kingdom is of lesser value from God's perspective. We've already seen how the world considers each one to have been a greater kingdom than the previous kingdom. The order of them from precious metals down to clay and from Daniel's own words show that each is inferior to the one before. Yet it isn't clear what characteristic God is using to measure them.
I think God values them according to how easily they can be remolded. We presume that means remolded to be the way God wants them to be. We have two clues that this malleability is the correct understanding; the text says Clay is brittle and Iron is hard. This understanding agrees with the sequence of the other metals, decreasing market value correlates with decreasing malleability (softness). Gold is very soft. Small pieces can be bent by hand. Silver is less soft; Bronze is even less so. No one would describe Iron as soft but given enough heat and force it can be bent. As mentioned above Clay is not only not soft. It is brittle, doesn't bend at all, and no amount of heat or pressure can be used to reshape or remold it.
So we turn back to answering the question of where we are in time on the statue. What would a kingdom of Clay be like? It would deny God, any god, completely. It might go so far as to proclaim its king as god, which is the definition of 666. Its king would be lacking in love and justice and have little care for the people in his kingdom. His concern would be only for himself and his own. I see communist totalitarian governments being similar in type to this but I think we haven't fully seen the hardness of the Clay yet. So we are probably in the time of the feet of Iron and Clay
Some people might say we no longer have kings and kingdoms and especially kings of kings. Most of the kingdoms in the statue are represented by metals. These kingdoms conquered other kingdoms by force. It is also possible, to conquer with ideas. Even in the times of the metal kingdoms, some kingdoms gave up without a fight because they knew they could not win. The essential element is that kingdoms give up some or all of their authority, whether by force or reason. In the case of reason though the bond between them is weaker, allowing for greater differences between the kingdoms.
I think that is where we are now and the United Nations is that kingdom. There was an earlier form of that kingdom called the League of Nations, but it broke up because the nations couldn't agree on anything and that led to World War II. The UN can also be described as have trouble agreeing to anything. This is a kingdom made of elements that don't mix together.
We need to ask another question. Why are only these kingdoms included the statue? There were many other kingdoms during these times. Many people have studied this and derived a set of requirements to be included in the statue. We've already discussed that it must be an empire, that is, a king of kings, and they must conquer Jerusalem while Israel is there.
We know we are not in a nation that denies God, which means we are not clay. So that would mean we are Roman Iron. But how could that be? Who would refer to our times as Roman when The Roman Empire collapsed 1500 years ago? It's possible that we have carried so many things forward from the Romans that God still considers us Roman. Our government and financial systems are similar. And when you consider our months named September (7), October (8), November (9), December (10) you are looking at Roman names. But notice that 10 is the last month … but there are 12 months now. The Romans added two months to their calendar and later changed the names of the 5th and 6th months to name them after Julius and Augustus, Caesars.
The name of the day we call Sunday comes from Roman times as the day that was set for the worship of the Invincible Sun (Sol Invictus). When you look at the individual characters on this page you are looking at characters from the Roman alphabet. We still use Roman Numerals in some places, such as clocks and Superbowl games. Plainly much of Rome is still here.
44 "In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever. 45 Inasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold …
The last kingdom is not a kingdom of man so it is not in the sequence of parts of the statue. Instead it is created without human hands (verse 34). Instead of conquering and building on previous kingdoms as other kingdoms have done, it destroys them completely and they blow away like chaff or dust.
This new kingdom is the kingdom that Jesus, the rock not formed by man, will setup when he comes again.
Daniel says the kingdoms of iron, clay, bronze, silver and gold are destroyed, but they were destroyed long ago. What this means is that no part of the former kingdoms is retained in this kingdom. Our manmade kingdoms have built on the ideas of previous kingdoms. These are ideas about how to govern, forms of government, the use of armies, capitalism, socialism, and many more. The results are modern kingdoms that have little or no value before God because they are so far from him. All of this will be swept away.
1. Understanding Pottery Clay is important to understanding all the pieces of the statue. Yet that is described the least. What do you think it might represent?
2. According to the statue, every kingdom after the first, which was Babylon, has less value than the previous kingdom, in God's eyes. What quality is God using to measure these kingdoms?
1 http://kenraggio.com/KRPN-Statue-Of-Nebuchadnezzar.html