[Darris McNeely] In our last daily we were talking about fulfilled prophecy being a proof of God and a proof of the Bible. There are many prophecies from the scriptures that we can see were fulfilled within prophecy. Probably one of the most important and stands out in my mind at least is in Daniel chapter 2 where Daniel interpreted a dream of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar who had a dream of an image that we see right here and he was baffled as to what this image really meant and he went to Daniel finally after searching and he came up with a means of explaining exactly what this was as Daniel got the interpretation from God.

[Steve Myers] Right, he may not have looked exactly like that. This is a representation of what that dream may have appeared like, but it was definitely some type of an image of a person, of a man. And so it came to represent something. And Nebuchadnezzar couldn't figure it out, all his wise men couldn't figure it out, so ultimately Daniel is the one that God inspired to be able to tell exactly what this dream meant.

[Darris McNeely] Beginning in Daniel 2:36 Daniel said, "This is the dream. We will tell the interpretation to the king. You, O king, are a king of kings for the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory; and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all—and you are this head of gold." So, Daniel reveals to Nebuchadnezzar that this head of gold is actually Babylon—the first world ruling empire described here in Daniel and the one in which Daniel found himself. And he goes on in this prophecy and the interpretation of it to show how the arms of silver, and the belly and thighs of brass, and legs and feet of iron represented the other successive world empires that came after Babylon.

[Steve Myers] Right, these are dominating powers that ruled the known world at that time. And so it's revealed as we follow history down, you know that Persia comes next. And you have the Persian Empire that took over after Babylon. They became the ruling authority at that time in the world. And it continued right down the line as Daniel explained those things. He showed these kingdoms that would arise. Of course, the next was Greece where you have Alexander the Great conquering the world like lightning and overtaking all territories at that time and ruling the world. And of course it goes on, what followed after the Greek Empire? If you study history, we know that it was Rome. And so the Roman Empire came next ultimately leading down to that image that Nebuchadnezzar had in that dream with this end time kingdom that's about to come.

[Darris McNeely] Actually when you go on through to end of the prophecy in Daniel 2, he shows that there is a stone cut out without hands that smashes this entire image on it's feet right here at the time of the Roman Empire and the whole image, the whole system from Babylon forward to Rome collapses, speaking about a system that is dominated world politics, culture, and religion up until the time of the end. So what you really have here is a prophecy that Daniel interprets for Nebuchadnezzar that covers 2500 years of prophecy and history—from the time of Babylon all the way to the time of the return of Jesus Christ. It's one of the most amazing of the prophecies probably one of the more better well known fulfilled prophecies of the Bible that does prove when you study into history the Bible and God's guiding, controlling hand in all the major affairs of history.

[Steve Myers] Right so here's God prophesying history in advance. Look at history. Does it match with what Daniel predicted? Absolutely. And then there's also one interesting thing as a—it's a vital point—as you go through all of these things, we can count on these. We can look at history and know that these existed. Well, then when you read the end of Daniel 2:44 he says, "In the days of these kings" right here at the very bottom of that image, he said, "the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed." So we can count on the fact looking back at fulfilled prophecy, God is proof, God is true, His word is true. His Kingdom is coming.

[Darris McNeely] That's BT Daily. Join us next time.