22. The Rock of Nations

Daniel 2:1-47

Key Verse: "In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever."

Daniel 2:44

There are two amazing observations about this prophecy that make it different from all other prophecies about the coming Messiah. The first amazing thing is that this prophecy was based on a dream from a king who was not from Israel, but was an enemy. Secondly, this prophesy was recorded in Aramaic, which was the common trade language of Daniel's day.  All the rest of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew.  This prophecy was not just meant to encourage the children of Israel, but to warn the world that God is still in ultimate control.

In this passage, the people of Israel are still in exile.  Daniel is in exile with them as a servant of the king, Nebuchadnezzar.  Through this dream, and its interpretation, we are given an overview of just what will take place on the world stage before God will finally act and establish His kingdom through the coming of Messiah.

I suppose that this could be seen as similar to the visit that God had with Abraham a year before Isaac was born in which God let Abraham know how much longer he would have to wait before the promise that He had made would be fulfilled. While God does not give actual dates and times here, he does lay out how many more kingdoms will rise and fall before He will intervene and begin to bring about Israel's redemption.

Since we are looking at Scripture as a series of road signs pointing to Messiah, it is interesting to note that here God has laid out four succeeding historical landmarks to watch for in a sequence of four kingdoms that controlled the land of Israel starting with Nebuchadnezzar’s as the head of gold.  In the five hundred years between the time Nebuchadnezzar had this dream and the birth of Christ, we see by looking back that there have indeed been only four kingdoms.  The gold one is Babylon.  The silver is the Persian Empire.  The bronze is the Greek empire lead by Alexander the Great.  The fourth is the Roman Empire that dominated the world at the time of Christ’s birth. 

Interesting too to note that the Roman Empire started out very strong and consolidated as the legs of iron, but by the time Christ was born the Empire was so extended and subdivided that it was beginning to weaken as the feet of clay.  At the end of the dream, the rock that becomes a mountain and conquers everything is of course the Church of Christ with Jesus as Lord of all.  The significance is that man’s kingdoms and efforts to rule with power corrupted by the sinful nature always crumble and come to an end.  But the kingdom of God will never end and never fail.  It is growing today.  Nothing can stop it.  Once it is fully established when Christ Jesus returns, there will never be another war.

How slowly God has laid His foundation.  He began with a promise in Genesis 3 that the serpent would be dealt with.  He took the time to select a man for His purposes.  Through that man, He created a family and then a nation of people who would know His ways and look forward to having His promises fulfilled.  God has been faithful even when His people were not.  He has never forgotten His purpose, to conquer death and redeem the world.  It is drawing closer to the time when God will appear.  Great and marvelous are His deeds!

Hymn: "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus"