An Epic Journey

“You looked, O king, and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. 32 The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. 34 While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were broken to pieces at the same time and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.

36 “This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king. 37 You, O king, are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; 38 in your hands he has placed mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.

39 “After you, another kingdom will rise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. 40 Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. 41 Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. 42 As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. 43 And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.

44 “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. 45 This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.

What a powerful piece of scripture.  I was struck tonight by the fulfilling of the 5th kingdom - the rock cut out of a mountain, not by human hands.  I don’t know if you know this about me, but I tend to be a bit of a doubter on the inside.  This piece of scripture was huge for me tonight.  I was thinking about the fact that Daniel is interpreting a dream that goes from Nebuchadnezzar’s reign through the Persians/Medes, Alexander the Great (Greece), and Rome and ends with the idea that during the time of those kings, there will be a Kingdom that will come and will smash them all - Jesus.  What beat a little doubt out of me tonight was the idea that this prophecy was very specific.  Not only that, but it is one that is guarded by a group other than Christians, the Jewish people (one of my doubts is the same ol “well, I could see how someone could just make it up and we all believe it because we weren’t there.).  The problem is, a Christian could not have simply inserted this prophecy into Jewish literature, it would have never been allowed.  On the other side of the coin, for a first century author to have made up the story of Jesus to fit this prophecy would be highly unlikely as well.  That would take an incredibly sophisticated imagination to see the twist in the story as being a spiritual kingdom rather than physical.  Not only that, but it would be nearly impossible to distinguish the other three kingdoms mentioned from within the picture.  Hindsight being 20/20 and all that…

Anyway, God never ceases to amaze me or to teach me.  I am so thankful for His Spirit and that He is never ashamed of my questions when I honestly seek the answer!

Signing off,

The doubting/believing Pastor

PS. Sorry about the long post, normally I try to limit it to 2 or 3 paragraphs.  Just couldn’t do it on this one…