NIV Daniel 2:23 - 49 23I thank and praise you, O God of my fathers: You have given me wisdom and power, you have made known to me what we asked of you, you have made known to us the dream of the king." 24Then Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, "Do not execute the wise men of Babylon. Take me to the king, and I will interpret his dream for him." 25Arioch took Daniel to the king at once and said, "I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king what his dream means." 26The king asked Daniel (also called Belteshazzar), "Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?"27Daniel replied, "No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, 28but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you lay on your bed are these: 29"As you were lying there, O king, your mind turned to things to come, and the revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen. 30As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than other living men, but so that you, O king, may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind.31"You looked, O king, and there before you stood a large statue--an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. 32The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, 33its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. 34While 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. 35Then 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. 37You, O king, are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; 38in 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. 40Finally, 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. 41Just 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. 42As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. 43And 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. 45This 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. "The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and the interpretation is trustworthy."46Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him. 47The king said to Daniel, "Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery." 48Then the king placed Daniel in a high position and lavished many gifts on him. He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placed him in charge of all its wise men. 49Moreover, at Daniel's request the king appointed Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego administrators over the province of Babylon, while Daniel himself remained at the royal court.Matthew 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
The rock that broke King Nebuchadnezzar's statue was symbolic of and foreshadowed Jesus Christ defeating the kingdoms of this world and setting up his millennial kingdom here on earth.
Revelation 11:15 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.
In part one of these teachings we saw some of the destruction the earth would undergo before Jesus Christ returns to set up his kingdom.
In part two we saw that this kingdom was the rock cut out not by man but by God. This was revealed to Nebuchadnezzar in a dream. This kingdom grew until it covered the entire earth and was everlasting.
We also saw that this kingdom will consist of two groups of people: mortals and immortals. The immortals will include the resurrected righteous believers of the Old Testament (all believers before Pentecost), the gathered of the church of grace, and also including the resurrected righteous believers who died after the rapture and during the tribulation period.... These are the three groups of people who will be immortal during the kingdom.
Christ's millennial kingdom will also include mortals. These will be the people who survived the tribulation and were judged righteous. These mortals will be able to enter the kingdom and they will live, marry, produce offspring and die in this kingdom. These are the people who will repopulate the earth during that time.
They also represent the people who will be deceived by the devil at the end of the millennial reign and gather together to destroy Jerusalem.
Revelation 20:7-9 7And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, 8And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.9And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
Now let's take some time and look at these mortals who will be in this kingdom. What I am about to teach you now, the greater part of Christianity does not know or understand. I'm going to show you a section of scripture that people take out of context and use to teach that the church of grace needs to go through the tribulation period.
When you endeavor to place the church of grace here in Matthew, you ignore dozens of clear scriptures written to the church. Furthermore, if you place the church of grace here, the Bible contradicts itself and cannot be trusted to be lived by. The result makes God a liar, makes Jesus a failure in his ministry and his blood shed in vain.
In our next issue, we will begin to study the record in Matthew 25 and see how it fits perfectly with the rapture, the resurrections, and the book of Revelation.
To be continued …ÿ
Note: All scripture is from the King James Version unless otherwise noted. NIV indicates The New International Version, NLT indicates the New Living Translation, NAS indicates the New American Standard version, NKJV indicates the New King James Version, ASV means the American Standard Version, NJB means the New Jerusalem Bible, BBE means the Bible in Basic English, DBY means the Darby translation, NAU means the American Standard Version, 1995 Edition, and NAB means the New American Bible translation. For more information, go to the Works Cited page.