In Daniel 2 we read of a prediction of who would rule the world and how it would end. In March 1941 the German leader gave a significant speech to his people stating, “See my people, we do not need anything from God! We do not ask anything from Him, except that He may leave us alone. We want to fight our own war, with our own guns, without God. We want to gain our victory without the help of God.” Hitler arrogantly believed he could conquer Europe with the strength of his armies; and, in 1941, who would dare say he was wrong? We know from history that Hitler failed in his proud ambition.
The good news that we read in the book of Daniel is that God is in absolute control of every event in human history. This is very comforting, because we do not have to fear the future, as we already know from the Bible who is the next superpower. Daniel chapter 2 gives a clear explanation of this.
What is the kingdom of God? When we speak about Heaven or the Kingdom of God, people today have different opinions about it. Some say it is a state of mind, an inner peace, a state of calm. Let us read what Jesus Himself had to say. “From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matthew 4:17
It is very interesting that Matthew is the only one using this term “the kingdom of heaven”. Mark, Luke, and John referred to it as the “kingdom of God”. Paul called it “the kingdom of Christ and of God,” Ephesians 5:5; and Peter referred to it as “the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,” 2 Peter 1:11. Considering these passages we see that the predominant name is the kingdom of God, and that is where He resides. According to the book of Daniel and Revelation we know that the kingdom of God will be the next superpower on this earth and it will last forever. The kingdom of God is currently in heaven. But it will be established on earth when Jesus returns.
What is a superpower? A superpower is a state that can influence global affairs. It can influence, to its own benefit, other nations. Keeping in mind these two things, the “kingdom of God” and the “next superpower,” we will go through Daniel chapter 2. Daniel chapter 2 is not only history told in advance but it is confidence in the future through a prophetic dream given to an ancient pagan king called Nebuchadnezzar. The king’s dream revealed events that would take place at the end of Earth’s history. The things God revealed to Nebuchadnezzar through Daniel the prophet, are really yet another way of showing that God cares. God wants us to know where history is heading. He wants us to feel confident and secure about the future.
“As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and He that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass.” Daniel 2:29. Nebuchadnezzar was thinking about the future of his kingdom when he was going to bed. God knew what the king was thinking. He can read our thoughts also. God said to Nebuchadnezzar, “do you want to know the future? I will give you a dream.” The idea is that the Chaldeans believed that the gods communicated with humans through dreams. You see how wise God is? He said “well, you and your people believe in dreams, so I will give you a dream, and let you know what will happen in the future.”
This dream shows us that the future is in God’s hands. Daniel chapter 2 challenges the psychics head on, and God reveals Himself as the only One who really knows the future. In this chapter God clearly outlines 2,500 years of history in advance, accurately foretelling the rise and fall of the empires. “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying; My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure.” Isaiah 46:9–10. God alone can foretell the future, according to the Bible. “Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are His.” Daniel 2:20. Wisdom and might are God’s prerogatives and throughout the book of Daniel we will see how God intervenes in favour of His people.
This prophecy begins at night in the king’s bedroom. As Nebuchadnezzar went to sleep that night, he had a remarkable dream. “And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him.” Daniel 2:1. He sensed that the dream had great implications for the future, but he did not understand the meaning of the dream, nor could he remember the dream. The king then summoned his wise men to tell him his dream and the interpretation, but they utterly failed. It was God who hid the dream from Nebuchadnezzar’s mind. If the king could have remembered the dream, the “wise men” would have made up an interpretation. The king called in his brightest minds, but they failed. They asked the king to tell them his dream in order for them to give an interpretation, but he could not because God hid the dream from the king’s mind. There was a conversation between the king and the wise men back and forth. “O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation.” Daniel 2:4
Of course they could not give the interpretation and finally, “The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king’s matter: therefore, there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean. And it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.” Daniel 2:10–11
King Nebuchadnezzar then became angry and gave a death decree for all the wise men of Babylon. Arioch, the king’s captain, came to execute Daniel, although he was not with the Babylonian wise men when they were asked to reveal the king’s dream. However, he was one of the city’s educated elite, trained as a servant for the king and thus regarded as a “wise man”. When Daniel asked why he must die, Arioch told him what had happened. Daniel then went in to see the king and asked for time so that he and his friends could pray to the God of heaven who reveals secrets. Daniel had utmost confidence that the God of Israel would solve the problem. He prayed together with his friends and during a night vision God did reveal to Daniel the dream and its interpretation.
Daniel knew where to go when he needed strength, power and wisdom. Maybe you are facing some decision in your life! Maybe you need wisdom which is beyond human ability. Daniel found that wisdom on his knees before God. “I thank Thee, and praise Thee,” he said. “[You have] given me wisdom and might.” Daniel 2:23
Have you ever felt that you just do not have the strength to go on and are falling apart? Have you ever felt that in your own life you have a problem that is unsolvable? Daniel knew where to go, let us follow his example. Daniel did not take the glory of God to himself, but he said to the king, “But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days.” Daniel 2:28. Daniel gives glory to God. Daniel was a humble servant and that is why God could work through him. He showed the king a time span of more than 2,500 years of history. The dream takes us from Nebuchadnezzar’s time 600 years before Christ, down past the days of Jesus, down the stream of history and it speaks to you and me about the end of the days or latter days. This dream in Daniel 2 is the key to unlock all Bible prophecy. It is the most fundamental and basic of all the Bible prophecies. It will help us to unlock the mysteries of Revelation.
What did the king see in his dream? “This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.” Daniel 2:32–35
Gold is a fitting symbol for Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom ruled the world from 605 to 539 B.C. It was located in modern-day Iraq, some 100 km south of Baghdad. The capital city of Babylon was the most powerful nation in the Middle East at that time. Its chief god, Bel-Marduk was crafted of solid gold. The prophet Isaiah also calls Babylon “the golden city.” Isaiah 14:4
Yet Babylon would not last forever; it would be overthrown by another dominant power, according to the prophecy. From history we know that the Medes and Persians overthrew the Babylonians in 539 B.C. on October 12. It was prophesied 150 years earlier that Cyrus the general would lead the Medo-Persian armies. He is mentioned by name in Isaiah 44:28: “That saith of Cyrus, He is My shepherd, and shall perform all My pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.” “Thus saith the LORD to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.” Isaiah 45:1. The Medes and Persians ruled the world from 539 to 331 B.C.
The Medes and Persians ruled the world for nearly two centuries, but Nebuchadnezzar’s dream did not end there, and neither did history. Time marches on, one kingdom replacing another just as God had foretold. The nation of Greece overthrew the Medes and Persians. Once again we find an appropriate representation. Alexander the Great, a young man, marched his men 11,000 miles, conquering almost all of the then known world before he died of malaria in a drunken stupor before he turned 33. What did his soldiers take into battle? Bronze breastplates, bronze helmets, bronze shields. Once again God describes the kingdom that would rule the world from 331 B.C. to 168 B.C. But history did not end with the third kingdom, it goes on; the last kingdom to rule the ancient Mediterranean world was Rome. The English historian Edward Gibbon wrote it like this, “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: The images of gold, or silver, or brass, that might serve to represent the nations and their kings, were successively broken by the iron monarchy of Rome.” For more than 500 years Rome appeared to be invincible. They extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the Euphrates River and beyond. But were the Romans the last ruling empire of the world? “And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.” Daniel 2:41
The prophecy that Daniel related from God predicted that the Roman empire would be divided. The break-up of the empire occurred from A.D. 351 to 476. No fifth world empire overthrew the Romans. We know that from history Rome was divided exactly as the prophet predicted. The barbarian tribes from the North invaded the Roman Empire and it was divided into ten separate distinct states. These were the nations of Europe today known as Germany, England, France, Spain, Italy, etc. God’s word is clear and steadfast. It stands forever.
These seven prophetic words “they shall not cleave one to another” (Daniel 2:43) have stopped every political leader such as Charlemagne, the king of Franks (747–814 A.D.), Charles V the king of Germany (1500–1558 AD), Louis XIV (1638–1715 A.D.), Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821 A.D.). The Battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1815, demonstrated once again the veracity of Bible prophecy. Also Kaiser Wilhelm Emperor of Germany (1859–1941 A.D.), and Adolph Hitler (1889–1945 A.D.).
Charles Downer Hazen wrote in Modern European History, p. 229, “Europe has always refused to be dominated by a single nation or a single man. It has run the risk several times in its history of passing under such yoke, but it always, in the end succeeded in escaping it.” Why? Because Daniel 2:43 says, “they shall not cleave one to another.” All of them failed although they tried both inter-marriages and wars; it did not work because God said “even as iron is not mixed with clay, they shall not cleave one to another.”
Bible prophecy is accurate, the future is in God’s hands; He can be safely trusted. History has followed this prophecy like a blueprint and will continue to do so. We have hope on the horizon according to the Bible. “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” Daniel 2:44. In the days of these kings, this is our time. The rock that was cut out without hands is in reference to God, and represents the coming kingdom of God. “And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever.” Revelation 11:15. The final superpower will be divine. Daniel concluded saying, “the dream is certain and the interpretation thereof sure.” Daniel 2:45
Today, we can have hope, because tomorrow is in the hands of God. History has played itself out. Only one kingdom remains to be established. Soon, Jesus Christ, the One who came to our planet 2000 years ago, will pay us yet another visit, and He is going to reward His faithful servants. Are you ready to meet Him? To be in the kingdom of God we must first know the King. The repentant thief on the cross said to Jesus; “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.” Luke 23:42. Have you crowned Jesus as your Lord and King? If not, now is the time to do it. How will you do it? Receiving Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross in your behalf, acknowledge Him as your personal Lord and Saviour. Then confess your sins and abandon them through a genuine repentance and live for Him, a new and fresh life, telling others what He has done for you. Amen!
Nicholas Anca