Daniel - Part 4
The King's Dream #1
Please first read Daniel 2.
This story is very similar to Joseph's experience (Genesis
41:1-40).
- The king had a troublesome dream, that seemed to have an
important meaning.
- The "magicians and wise men" were not able to interpret the dream.
- God's man (Joseph & Daniel) correctly interpreted the dream,
indicating that God had chosen to reveal something special to the king
about the future.
- Joseph and Daniel both were elevated to high positions of
authority in the government.
- For both Joseph and Daniel, the situation had to became worse
before it became better.
But there is one significant difference between the two stories of
Joseph and Daniel. Daniel's king made an impossible
demand. The royal "wise men" must first tell what the king
dreamed, then they must tell what the dream means.
What was the king's reason for this demand? He he forgotten the
dream? Or was he making a test that would validate the accuracy
of the wise man' interpretation? I believe it was the
latter.
Nebuchadnezzar understood political "spin" and double talk. A
famous example in history comes from a story about the Oracle of
Delphi.
Delphi was the home of the temple of
Greek god of Apollo. It seems that gasses escaped from a
geological fissure, and a prophetess for Apollo would hallucinate on
those gasses, make weird noises, and say weird things. Other
priests would offer an official "translation" of the woman's
unintelligible sounds as if they were messages from Apollo.
Prominent people often came to Delphi to ask advice from "the gods"
through the Oracle. One such supplicant was King Croesus of a
small but wealthy kingdom of Lydia, in what today is west central
Turkey. Lydia was famous for its fertile soil for farming, and as
a natural source for gold. Around the year 500, the Persian
empire was advancing through the Middle East, and King Croesus wanted
to stop it. He consulted the Oracle of Delphi, asking whether or
not he should attack the vastly superior army of Persia. The
message from the Oracle was that if Croesus attacked Persia, "a great
kingdom would fall." Croesus took that as a positive
message, and he made the attack. However, the great kingdom that
fell was his own.
King Nebuchadnezzar was no dummy. He understood that his fortune
tellers were skilled in making predictions and giving advice that
sounded profound, but really meant nothing specific -- a lot like
today's fortune cookies and horoscopes. If he reported his
dream to the wise men, they could tell him anything, and he couldn't
know if what they told him was true or not... unless they could also
tell him the dream first.
And what exactly did he dream? He saw a large statue, made of
four
different metals:
- Gold head
- Silver chest and arms
- Bronze stomach and thighs
- Iron legs (feet were a mixture of iron and baked clay)
Then he saw a large stone falling from heaven, striking the feet of
stature, as it all crumbled to dust and blew away. Then that
large stone grew to become a large mountain the covered the whole earth.
Daniel said that the four parts of the body made of four different
metals each represent four different empires. In this
chapter he only identifies the first empire - Babylonia. The
other three empires would come in the future. Since we have the
advantage of now looking back in history, we understand who Daniel was
talking about:
- Gold head = Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian empire (626BC)
- Silver chest = the Medo-Persian empire (Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes;
539BC)
- Bronze stomach and thighs = Alexander the Great's Greek empire
(330BC)
- Iron legs = Roman empire (63BC )
And of course, the rock that fell from heaven was Christ and His
kingdom that would one day cover the whole earth, not limited to
political boundaries. His Kingdom is not at all like the
other kingdoms of the earth. Jesus said, "God's kingdom is coming, but not in a way
that you will be able to see with your eyes. People will not say,
'Look, here it is!' or, 'There it is!' because God's kingdom is within
you." (Luke 17:20,21 NCV)
When Jesus stood on trial in front of Pontius Pilate, His enemies
accused him of the crime of claiming to be a king. Jesus
explained to Pilate: "My
kingdom does not belong to this world. If it belonged to this world, my
servants would fight so that I would not be given over to the Jews. But
my kingdom is from another place." (John 17:36 NCV)
The Kingdom of God is simply Jesus reigning as king in the hearts of
people who trust Him. And, according to Nebuchadnezzar's dream,
that Kingdom would grow.... and grow... and grow... and cover the whole
earth. Also we see here a clear prediction that all kingdoms of
earth will one day end -- as the planet earth will one day be
completely destroyed and we will have the privilege of living under
Christ's reign, not as Secret Citizens, with a New Heaven and New
Earth, created by God's own perfect design, free from all the politics,
free from all the misery that we experience here. (See Revelation 21)
God's revelation to Nebuchadnezzar specifically identified only the
first of the four empires (Daniel 2:48). Later God revealed to
Daniel the identity of empires #2 (Medo-Persian) and #3 (Greek) in
Daniel 8:20-21, Daniel 10:20, and Daniel 11:2-3. We have the
benefit of having the hindsight of history that enables us to identify
empire #4 as Rome. Other future events that God revealed to
Daniel with great detail includes
- the breakup of the Greek empire into four divisions (Daniel 8:22; Daniel 11:4)
- the conflicts between Seleucids in Syria (north), and the
Ptolemies in Egypt (south) (Daniel 11)
- their conquest of Israel
- the horrors Israel suffered during that time
- the Maccabeean revolt
- the crucifixion of Christ (Daniel 9:24-26)
- the Roman destruction of the temple (Daniel 9:26)
In light of recent national and international events, one lesson we can
learn from Nebuchadnezzar's dream that
gives us great comfort is simply this: Nothing surprises
God! Not hurricanes. Not wars. Not
tsunamis. Not terrorist attacks. We do not know
what will happen in the future,
but we know One who does know. We do not understand all God's
purposes and
plans. But we are confident that no matter what happens, He will
guide us and care for us.
If we read ahead a few chapters in Daniel, we learn that God had
another important lesson for Nebuchadnezzar in his dream. Daniel told
the king:
"God has given you authority
and power.
He has give you might
and glory.
He has put everyone
under your control...
He has made you ruler
over all of them." (Daniel 3:38 NIrV)
Clearly, God wanted Nebuchadnezzar to know that his empire was not his
own. God temporarily loaned it to Nebuchadnezzar, and
Nebuchadnezzar would have done well to acknowledge that. Sadly,
this is a lesson that Nebuchadnezzar failed to learn as we will see in
a future lesson. But lest we be eager to scold
Nebuchadnezzar, we also need to learn this same lesson. Nothing we claim as our
own is really ours. All that we have is on temporary loan from
God. Like Nebuchadnezzar, we also would do well to live
managers of God's treasures, for His good and for the benefit of other
people.
Finally, a third lesson in Nebuchadnezzar's dream is a lesson for us --
Christ is eternal;
everything else in this world is temporary. All
kingdoms of this world eventually crumble into dust. But the
Kingdom of Christ endures forever. Kings of this world establish
and increase their power through death, or the threat of death.
Christ also established His kingdom through death -- His
own! His death on the cross in your place freed you from
eternal slavery in the kingdom of Satan, and won for you the right of
citizenship in heaven.