05: World News & Prophecy - Daniel 2:24-45

[Darris McNeely] So good morning, everyone. And for those of you watching online, welcome back to Daniel. We are in Daniel 2 here in our World News and Prophecy class. In the last class, we got up to through verse 23, I believe, and we are into the period of time of Daniel's work with King Nebuchadnezzar. King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream that disturbed him greatly, we talked about that last time, and he called in all of his magicians and his astrologers. They were not able to interpret the dream for him. And so he sends out a decree to kill everybody, kill all the magicians and astrologers in the land. And, you know, Shakespeare has a line from one of his plays that is rather famous. It says, "Kill all the lawyers." And, of course, if you're a lawyer, you don't like that line from Shakespeare. Although if you don't like lawyers, people like that line. It depends on where you fall on that particular situation.

Well, Nebuchadnezzar said basically, "Kill all the magicians, all the sorcerers, and all the soothsayers," because they could not interpret the dream. Obviously, they didn't even know the dream, much less interpret it. Likely, you can assume that he exposed them for what they were, which was frauds and charlatans in the main and at the end of everything. Not that they didn't have certain powers because they were in touch with the dark world, the spirit world of Satan and his demons, and they could conjure up probably things and have certain abilities to manipulate, which is the reality. But it would not have been them, and it was not the work of God. It would have been the work of the powers of the demonic world, Satan and his fallen angels. But that we could assume may have been somewhat capricious, not always being able to do that. You also have to ask the question, just how much did Nebuchadnezzar really believe in their powers, their world, their efficacy as this class of people?

One of the things about dictators, despots, kings throughout ancient history, especially in ancient history, while they were a part of the pagan world, and they had pagan gods and goddesses and temples, and you had all of this sorcery and all going on, knowing human nature, you've got to factor in a little bit that these despots, like Nebuchadnezzar, were a bit probably atheistic in that they didn't believe really in their own gods, nothing to do with the true God. I rather suspect that they were skeptical of this class of people, but they had to use them. They had to work with them because the magicians and priests and everybody else, they did hold power. And their power was largely in the belief of the people. And as long as the people believed that they were the intercessors or the god or the priests of these pagan rituals or they had contact with powers beyond the temporal realm, that gave them power over people. But if that was ever broken, they just became like nobody. They became like the wizard in "The Wizard of Oz," just a man behind the curtain.

And I rather suspect Nebuchadnezzar looked at these people as people behind the curtain, and yet they had to go along with them because of the power that they did have within the culture and the society. We're going to see Nebuchadnezzar now as he interacts with Daniel become aware of the true God. And that's going to continue into Chapter 3 and 4, especially in Chapter 4 when we get into the story of Nebuchadnezzar's seven years of insanity, and, actually, Nebuchadnezzar writes Chapter 4. And so we can speculate, and will as we go along, as to just what did he understand, what did he know, what did he accept about Daniel's God. So this is now going to be his encounter, the beginning of his encounter through Daniel with the God of heaven, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And that, I think, is important to understand as we kind of try to get acquainted with Nebuchadnezzar and analyze him a little bit as this great king who did big things but was a part of his own world and his own time, realizing he has to straddle a lot in order to keep himself on the throne as we'll see as we go along. So let's go to verse 24. 

Daniel 2:24 "Therefore Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He went, and he said thus to him, 'Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon. Take me before the king, and I will tell the king the interpretation.'" 

This is, of course, after Daniel had gone to his brothers, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, and shared with them the situation. They had prayed about it, and God gave the interpretation and revealed it to Daniel as we saw earlier. 

Daniel 2:25 "Arioch then quickly brought Daniel before the king." Things were probably moving pretty quick through the streets of Babylon that night. "And he said thus to him, 'I have found a man of the captives of Judah who will make known to the king the interpretation.' The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, 'Are you able to make known to me the dream which I have seen and its interpretation?'" 

And so he looked at him, perhaps somewhat skeptically. We don't know beyond the initial reference at the end of Chapter 1 how much interaction Daniel had had to this point with Nebuchadnezzar on a one-to-one basis. He may not have had much at all if any, but now he is right there, and it is his moment to put up, in other words, bring forth what he knows, and he's able to do it. And here's his answer in verse 27.

Daniel 2:27 "Daniel answered in the presence of the king and said, 'The secret which the king has demanded, the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, and the soothsayers cannot declare to the king.'" 

Daniel knew that. Daniel also understood that the true source of their power and that in a sense was nothing compared to the power of God. He said in verse 28.

Daniel 2:28 "There is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days." Now, note that phrase, the latter days. We're going to come back to that. "Your dream and the visions of your head upon your bed were these."

So here he says there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets. It's an interesting thought just for a moment if we could pause there. When we study the nature of God, and we begin to go into that fundamental belief about the nature of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and we look at the Scriptures that reveal who and what God is to us, we're going to have a lot of answers. We're going to have some answers or some questions that we won't have answers for because, as we'll read in one Scripture, the secret things belong to God. And while God does reveal a large amount of His purpose and His plan, there are some things that God does not reveal about prophecy, about His plan and purpose beyond, let's say, the time of the Great White Throne Judgment after the millennium, after the period of the Great White Throne and beyond. We have a lot of questions, what next? God doesn't tell us everything. He may give a hint or a clue there, here, and we have to infer that. But when it comes to salvation, the knowledge of how to be saved, to answer that question as the rich man asked of Jesus, God gives us that.

We have the essentials to understand God, Christ's sacrifices, and what God expects, His gift of grace and salvation to us. That is not a secret. That is not a mystery. And so, in a sense, then God does reveal a great deal. And through Daniel, He is going to begin revealing a lot of information, but as we'll see at the end of Daniel, not everything. Because God will say to Daniel at the end of the book, He'll say, "Go your way, Daniel. Things are sealed until the time of the end." So He will not have every detail of information regarding the prophecies that He has shown and how and when all the details will wrap up. And so He does reveal secrets, and He gives understanding. But that is a process we have to recognize is very humbling and comes with great responsibility as we look at this. And so he tells the king he's able to help him. Basically, he says that we're calling upon the God of heaven. And it becomes known as we will go through this that Nebuchadnezzar had this dream so that he could then come in contact with Daniel and through Daniel come in contact with God and come to understand this.

Daniel 2:29-30 So in verse 29, Daniel says, "As for you, oh, King, thoughts came to your mind while on your bed about what would come to pass after this, and He who reveals secrets has made known to you what will be. But as for me, this secret has not been revealed to me because I have more wisdom than anyone living, but for our sakes who make known the interpretation to the king and that you may know the thoughts of your heart." 

Very humbling. Daniel comes before the king, and he doesn't take credit for what he has. He's already given God thanks for the revelation when God did reveal to him. He prayed, and he acknowledged that it came from God. You know, that's a good point maybe for us to pause and think about. As we study the Bible, as we grow in grace and knowledge, we have our part to play in that we read the Bible, we pray to God for wisdom and understanding, we study and pour into the Scriptures and make our notes and turn back and forth to compare scripture with scripture to dig deep into a study about any particular topic that we might make, and in time, we grow in understanding. The light comes on.

You're here at ABC, and for the next few months, you're going to do an in-depth study of the Bible that will be the most in-depth of your life. There'll not be another 9 or 10-month period of your life where you will study the Bible as intently as you're doing in this class. You've elected to come and do that, and you want to take advantage of every moment in the class, an opportunity and, you know, what time you will spend beyond the class at breaks or in the evenings prepping for a test or doing a bit of your own personal study. But in the process of this experience, you're going to gain understanding. You're going to know more about the Bible as a result of this. You're going to have wisdom as you apply yourself and you think about and you pray and ask God for wisdom to take that understanding and that knowledge that you are developing and apply it in a practical sense into your life. And that should help you for the remainder of your life.

But as you do and as you gain that knowledge, always remember that it's God that gives it to you through His Spirit, and He opens your mind. He works with the innermost parts of your thoughts, of your heart to reveal that. And don't then approach the Bible to ace every test, to be the top student in the class necessarily, to be the one that always knows everything. That's not the main point. The main point is to grow in knowledge and understanding but to also recognize that it comes from God and it's for a purpose. It is to reflect His glory and not ours. Daniel gives us that.

And I always tell students, and I'll mention this to you here probably about for the second time of many, and that is Daniel is a book of Christian living as much as it is a book about prophecy and history. Daniel, as we established at the beginning, was a disciple in whom was light and wisdom and understanding. And there is as much Christian living, if you will, principles in this book as anywhere else. You'll learn how to pray. You will learn how to approach God and think about God. You will learn how to handle His Word. And you will learn how to act godly with your peers in our world and with those that will supervise you in your work life. If you learn nothing else as Daniel goes to the king and works with the Nebuchadnezzar and then the king of Persia, Belteshazzar, and ultimately God, you learn how to submit to those that have authority. Whether it's your supervisor in your job, the ministry and the Church, and ultimately to God, we learn that too in the book of Daniel. So there's a lot working here and many multi-layers of understanding as we go here.

Daniel 2:31 "You, oh, king, were watching, and behold, a great image. And this great image, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you." 

Now, here's where we now get into the nuts and bolts of what this image looked like. And as I said in the last class, we're going into the deep end right now. And if you think this is deep, it's going to get deeper when we come to Chapter 7. And then it's going to get even deeper when we get into the book of Revelation. So hang on, buckle up your seatbelts, get your hands ready to kind of brace yourself because here we go into what he saw. 

"The image you saw, whose splendor was excellent, stood before you, and its form was awesome." 

Now, we have the picture on the screen. You have the picture in front of you with this image that one of our artists, a member in the Church, Bruce Long, did exclusively for us in United a few years back. And so you'll see a lot of his images as we go through this.

Daniel 2:32-35 "This image's head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thigh are bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay." Now, understand there's a distinction between the two legs and the feet. The two legs are iron, solid, hard. The two feet are of iron mixed with clay, all right? "You watched then while a stone..." So here's the image. "And then you watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors. The wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the earth."

So here's the overview that Daniel gives to him here of the four elements, the gold, the silver, the bronze, the iron, and then the iron mixed with clay. And then the fifth element, which is a stone cut without hands from a mountain, striking the image on its feet, and the whole image, everything from the iron and clay, all the way up to the gold, all of it is just obliterated, and it is blown to the winds. There's a lot working here that, as Nebuchadnezzar hears it, he would have thought if he were literate, which he probably was to a degree, of certain pagan ideas about their gods and wind and chaff and the wind just dispersing kingdoms and armies and men. And so it's interesting to have that knowledge of, let's say, pagan literature of the Chaldeans, which would relate certain elements at least of what Daniel is describing to Nebuchadnezzar here. But what Daniel is giving him is truth, not pagan imagery. But it's things that he would have at least understood regarding this. So we have these four elements and then the stone cut without hands. And then Daniel goes into the interpretation. We'll just keep reading here, and then we'll come back to it.

Daniel 2:36-38 "This is the dream. Now, we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. You, oh, King, are a king of kings." Now, this is Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar II technically is his full name. "You 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 the heaven, He's given them into your hand and has made you ruler over them all. You are this head of gold." 

So we go back to this image here, this particular picture. The head of gold, the finest of the elements, very valuable, more valuable than silver, which is going to come next, is the king. And, therefore, it's Babylon and represents the kingdom, the king and the kingdom, which he epitomizes, which as we will go through these, we will see that there are kings of the other elements or empires that are going to follow that epitomize each of these systems as well. The first one is Nebuchadnezzar here at this particular point.

And so one thing I want to mention, the language here in verse 37, 38, it says, "You have a kingdom and power and strength. Wherever the children of men dwell or the beasts of the field, He's given them into your hand." That's a bit of... Nebuchadnezzar didn't reign over the whole world. His kingdom was limited to this region. I didn't lead the map of Babylon up, but largely this kingdom in what we call the Middle East, and it included what is Israel down to Egypt and back in here. But it didn't include anything out over here and what we now call Europe, nor did it include territory way up here in what are called the Eurasian Steppes of what is today the stands of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan and Russia, nor did it include everything over here in the Far East of Asia, China, lands over there. Babylon didn't go that far, nor did it go way down here into Africa. So it's language to show that certainly he was a powerful king and probably the most powerful on the earth at that time. But keep in mind that the Bible's focus is not the whole earth. It is where God is working with, first of all, His people, Israel, the descendants of Abraham, and the other nations as they come in contact with Israel in the fulfillment of God's purpose.

That's an important point to understand about, let's say, the historical framework of the Bible. It is not a complete book of world history. It is history only from the point of view of God working through primarily Israel, His people, and the nations as they come in contact with them. That's the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, it's the story of the Church as it begins in Jerusalem, and then the gospel is taken to the various regions that we study. And that's the New Testament. So when it says that he's kind of over everything, well, he technically isn't. But it's language to show certainly the power more of God in that His utterances and His working with this temporal King Nebuchadnezzar does have world global implications. And that's an important thing to understand here as we look at this head of gold and everything from it.

As we will go through Scripture, we're going to be seeing, as I said at the beginning, Babylon, this head of gold is a very important part of the the story of the Bible. It represents Satan's kingdoms, Satan's way, Jerusalem, God's kingdom, God's way, at least on the earth as it was at its height. But, also, as we're looking at this image, and the Babylon or Nebuchadnezzar is this head of gold, we're seeing an image of a person, a man, obviously, but understand that the head is where the seat of intellect is. It is the brain, and that directs the rest of the body. And that's a very important point of understanding about this image and that Babylon is there, not one of the others, Persia, Greece, or Rome. What happens and what begins at Babylon does have global implication, and it will continue through the other systems even though Babylon as a city or as a kingdom will be given over to the other kingdoms. And that's what the progression from the head to the feet show as well. And that is Nebuchadnezzar is king now, but Babylon is not always going to be around. There's going to be another that will come, and that's what Daniel tells him here.

Daniel 2:39 He said, "After you will arise another kingdom inferior to yours, then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything. And like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the others." 

So we'll pause right there. So there's a progression from gold to silver to bronze to iron. And if you know anything about these elements, you know that the progression is from, let's say, gold being the most valuable to iron being the least valuable. Important, and iron is good, but the value decreases as we go along. And with that, we also see that there's a succession from gold to silver to bronze and to iron. And so he's showing Nebuchadnezzar that you're not going to always be around. There will be another one that will come after you. Then there will be one that will supplant that, a third. And then ultimately there will be a fourth. And as he goes along, he tells a little bit about it. More is actually said about the fourth kingdom, in that the fourth kingdom of iron in verse 40 will break in pieces and crush all the others.

Now, as we understand what these kingdoms are, and your chart shows this, and in the Church, our traditional understanding of the kingdoms that this image represents are Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. That coincides with other scholars, biblical scholars, the more conservative, evangelical frame of mind, who also see the same thing. We're not the only ones that see that. This understanding goes back quite a ways. In fact, it goes back to the, you know, 2,000 years, because the Jews in the 1st century understood that Rome was the iron of the image of the book of Daniel here in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. So the understanding of this has been around for a long, long time in terms of the broad outline of history that is being projected here. And that's what it is. Look at it...this is another point. Daniel is being given, and then passing it on to Nebuchadnezzar, a projection of world history from the time of Babylon and the early sixth century BC to the end of the age, end of the age. And Gentile kingdoms that will be ruling in parts of the world, inheriting their rule from the power behind this image, that of Satan, they will be later, in Daniel 7, be portrayed as different beasts. We'll study that. But it's a progression of world history.

And so it's a magnificent vision, an interpretation that Daniel is given, and it presents a framework for the world that helps us to understand a number of things about certainly God's hand in history, that God guides history according to His purpose, and that the prophetic flow helps us to appreciate and to understand the various scriptures that we'll see here in Daniel and other parts of the Old Testament and certainly the New Testament when we come into the time of the Roman Empire. That will also be there as well. At this point, it probably would be good to go back. I told you to take note back in verse 28 of the phrase, "in the latter days," in the latter days. So look at this kind of as a bit of an inset. In the context of Daniel, this includes all of the visions that Nebuchadnezzar received, and Daniel interprets, stretching from...let's call it roughly 600 BC, that would be the early 6th century, to the second coming of Christ. All right? So we're talking about, well, you know, over 2,600 years of history. And this phrase, "in the latter days," is a very common...it is used several times in the Old Testament. And the majority of the references to this phrase, "in the latter days," is referring to the far distant future, far distant from the time of Daniel, to the time when Messiah reigns, or the coming of Christ.

And the meaning of the word out of the Aramaic refers to that future time. There are a couple, perhaps a few other references where this phrase is used, and it may be a shorter time frame, more contemporary to the reference in the Scripture. Deuteronomy 31:29 is an example of that. That phrase is used there, and it refers to an indefinite time in the future, but it primarily refers to the far distant future, when the time of the Messiah. It is speaking to the final period of human history and the events that we read about, especially in the book of Revelation, of the seals, the day of the Lord, of the time leading up immediately to the second coming, as the latter days. Now, this phrase is brought out in other references in the Bible. Isaiah 2:2-4 is one. I'll just turn and read that quickly. Isaiah 2. We know the scripture quite well. We usually read it at the Feast of Tabernacles. 

Isaiah 2:2-3 Says, "It shall come to pass in the latter days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills," as symbolism for the nations. "All nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, 'Come. Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways. We shall walk in His paths.'"

Universally understood to be a messianic phrase or scripture here in Isaiah 2, pointing to the time of the millennium, as we would refer to it. Again, we read that during the Feast of Tabernacles and understand that. And so that phrase, "in the latter days," pinpoints the time and helps to give that understanding. Micah 4:1 is another reference you can put down. We won't turn there. And there are many others. If you have your Blue Letter Bible, you can look that up later, that particular word, and it will have all the other references in Scripture. Genesis 49:1, when Jacob blesses the sons of his sons, the sons of his 12 sons, he tells them what's going to happen to them in the latter days. We understand that and look to that to gain an understanding about Israel in the time of the latter-day period and certain traits regarding them.

And so the climactic part of the king's dream then takes us down through all of these empires and the culminating in that time when the stone cut without hands hits it on the feet. So I've given you a chart, the one chart that you have. This is the succession of kingdoms as prophesied in Daniel and Revelation. I handed this out to you last period. And this shows you the particular kings on the historical fulfillment on the left-hand column and the dates. I'm going to tell you this right now. When we get to Daniel 7, I'm going to give you an even bigger chart of this with pictures. We all like pictures. And it will have more information but hopefully kind of help you to visualize some of this as well. And so what this is showing is the movement of history. Babylon will fall in the year 539 BC. It will fall to the Persian Empire, sometimes called the Medo-Persian Empire, under Cyrus the Great who becomes the head or the epitome, if you will, of that Persian Empire. And both are mentioned in Scripture.

The third empire, that of the bronze, is understood to be the Greek Empire of Alexander...beginning with Alexander the Great, and he epitomizes that empire as well. And that is a unique period where Alexander the Great came out of Greece and he conquered the Persian Empire. And we'll get into that story in Daniel 8 because it's told in detail there. And then the fourth kingdom of iron is that of the Roman Empire. We've already begun to talk about that in the book of Acts. And that, obviously, is centered over here in Italy, Rome, and that empire then began to spread, and, ultimately, it conquered the Greek Empire and moved all the way into this part of the world right up to about where you see the dark brown and the lighter brown. This marks kind of the...the lighter territory essentially is the Roman Empire at its height. It never went any further east into this area. But it went all the way up into what is today Europe, France, the British Isles, up in there. And that's the fourth empire of iron, okay? So those are the four told in the booklet on the final superpower, which I hope that... Don't lose this one as I've mentioned. This kind of goes through it here in pretty good details, got all your pictures within it, but also aspects that we have yet to cover in this.

There's one thing I should mention. Well, let's go ahead and read through. Let's talk about the feet here for a moment. Well, before I do that, let me mention one other thing. If you look at your image, your image has two legs of iron. Some interpretation of this is that that represents a division in the Roman Empire between the capital at Rome and what later became the capital at a city that will be built by one of the emperors named Constantine, and he builds a city right here because the empire was so big. And he does this in the 4th century AD, 300s. This is Constantine. He's a very important figure in the story of the early Christianity and the Roman Empire. But the Roman Empire develops two capitals. And some interpret that to be represented by these two legs. I think that's a reasonable interpretation. We've always accepted that within the Church. And that is important to understand. It's all Rome.

Rome is a city fell in the year 476 AD. That's another one of those dates that you need to know. 476 AD was the fall of Rome. But the empire didn't collapse completely. It was only the end of the empire in the west or one of the lakes. In the east, Constantinople continued for nearly another 1,000 years. It changed its name to Byzantium because it was Greek. And in the year 1453 AD, Byzantium, formerly called Constantinople, fell, and that effectively ended the Roman Empire. And so when we say that Rome falls in 476, it's more accurate to say the city of Rome fell or the Western Empire, which was rather dramatic and important. But from a historic and even a prophetic point of view, which we'll study when we get into Revelation 13, the continuation in the east is the continuation of the Roman Empire. And I think that when you're looking at these two legs, that's important to understand. Now, let's focus on the 2 feet, which has 10 toes of miry clay here in the time that is remaining to us. 

Daniel 2:41 "Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided." And I think that's understood to be the division of Constantine's period of time. Even though it was still under one...well, it was still called the Roman Empire. They had multiple emperors for a period of time, but that's another part of the story. But, "Feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided, yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly of iron, partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile. As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men, but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay." 

It's pretty well self-explanatory. I think we can all easily understand. Iron and clay don't mix. You know, they're two different elements, but they are pictured as being mixed together on the feet with 10 toes, obviously 5 on each, and it speaks of the mingling of men, of peoples.

And the best interpretation that is what we have always had in the Church, and other scholars hold to this as well, is that this is speaking of an empire's...actually multiple successive empires that are all connected to the iron. And what does the iron represent? Rome. And the 10 toes with iron and clay are still of the same system. That's important to know. They're part of the same Roman system. And though Rome fell in 476 and it continues in the east, there are very important aspects of that Roman empire, Roman system that survive. We'll talk about that later. And what then develops is represented by these 10 toes on the feet of iron and clay and different peoples mixed together, primarily in Europe, different languages, different cultures that come together under a king and form a revival of that Roman system down into the modern world as represented by other parts of... When we get to Daniel 7, we'll talk about the horns and heads, and that'll carry into the book of Revelation in that way. And so, in looking at that and coming to understand that, it gives us a pretty broad understanding. Now, let's just go ahead and read the remainder of this to keep this within the context of this particular class.

Daniel 2:44 Says that, "In the days of these kings..."

Now, these kings that are being referenced are the kings represented by the feet and the 10 toes. Now, I'm going to turn to a scripture. If you have your Bibles open, which you should, turn over to Revelation 17. Revelation 17, this is a chapter that details what we're looking at in Daniel 2 but in far more detail. But we won't worry about all the other details except for the one in verse 14. All right? Well, let's begin in verse 12.

Revelation 17:12-14 "The 10 horns which you saw are 10 kings, which have received no kingdom as yet." Ten, synonymous with the 10 toes. Just go ahead and note that. "But they receive authority for an hour as kings with the beast." The beast is a political power. "These are of one mind. They will give their power and authority to the beast." Ten kings will do that. "They will make war with the Lamb. The Lamb will overcome them." The Lamb, you should understand easily, that represents Christ. “And His return, He will make war with these 10 kings and the beast and overcome them. He is Lord of lords, King of kings, and those who are with Him are called chosen and faithful."

And so you'll see this on your chart, but understand that as...when we go back here to Daniel 2:44 with these 10 toes on the feet, that's understood, and I think it's a correct understanding that we have had in the Church and others as well of the fact that when this stone cut without hands strikes the image, it strikes it not at the head, not at the chest, not at the belly or even the legs. It strikes it on the feet where there are 10 toes of iron and miry clay. And we just read in Revelation 17 that there will be 10 kings who for a short period give their power to this powerful political empire represented by the beast. And those 10 kings, 10 prime ministers, 10 nations, it could be more than 10 nations... It just says 10 kings. And, historically, kings could be over more than one nation. So we don't want to just limit it to 10 nations. Scripture says 10 kings, and we'll look at that. But for the prophecy, it coincides the timing of Revelation 17 with the return of Christ. And in Daniel 2:44, it coincides here with the stone cut without hands striking this image representing an entire system on the feet.

Daniel 2:44 It says, “It will break in pieces and consume these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.

This stone cut without hands represents a fifth kingdom, and it's the kingdom of God, fifth kingdom. You have four worldly kingdoms, four earthly kingdoms, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome, and the Roman system, and they're all connected as part of this entire system represented by the body, but it's manifested in the end period as a Roman system. And when Christ returns, it will return at the timing of those 10 toes or the 10 kings of Revelation 17. 

Daniel 2:45 "Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold," all of it, the whole system, "the great God has made known to the king that what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation is sure." 

And the interpretation comes to a close. And we've got this dream, it is interpreted in a broad sense, and it ends as far as this episode. As I said, in Daniel 7, Daniel's going to have his own dream, and it will be an expansion of this. He's going to dream about four beasts that rise up out of the sea, and that, to me, would be even scarier than what Nebuchadnezzar dreams here. So we'll end the lecture here. And in the next talk, we'll come back. I want to pick up a few loose ends on this so that we understand what we're talking about.