Episode Transcript
Daniel chapter 2 verses 31 and 32.
The title of the message this morning is "An Image of Power".
An image of power.
I absolutely love teaching the Bible in all of its facets.
One of the most intriguing, fascinating parts of the scripture, of course, is Bible prophecy.
And this morning we were in the Psalms, and we were in 1 Samuel and the New Testament, and we were looking at Jesus being the seed of David according to the flesh.
And I tell you what, you talk about some fulfilled prophecy.
It's just absolutely amazing.
And then to go from that here to the book of Daniel, more prophecy is just fascinating.
I'm not a prophecy buff.
I don't believe anyone should be.
I'm a Bible buff.
But it is fascinating because it so confirms the Word of God.
In our study of the previous verses over the past several weeks now, they've revealed to us that the dream King Nebuchadnezzar had was given to him by God for the purpose of revealing to him, and thus to all of us who read the book of Daniel now, what the future holds for this world, particularly in the last days.
And I love knowing what the future holds, because then I know who holds the future, right?
And I can walk through this chaotic, ever-changing world, knowing there is a never-changing promise that is going to come to pass, and we are going to win, and win far more than Donald Trump could ever let you win.
And it's going to be forever, eternal victory in Jesus.
The previous verses have prepared us for the dream.
And now in our verses this morning, we shall begin to study the dream itself.
In verse 31, Daniel said, "Thou, O King, sawest."
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your precious Word.
I thank you for these people here today.
Such an answer to prayer.
I thank you for these people so much.
I thank you, Lord, you've put in their hearts to set aside, Father, what they could be doing today what they should be doing today, to choose the more excellent things of God and to fill, Father God, their hearts with your word.
Thank you, Father.
May all eyes be on you this morning as you teach your word.
May your Holy Spirit give us the understanding of it that we need.
And we ask it in Jesus' wonderful name.
Amen.
"Thou, O King, sawest."
Now remember what we learned from the previous verses about the future.
The future already exists, but God has clothed it.
Now Daniel said last week that God, through this dream, was revealing or unclothing the future.
God was pulling back the future's clothing, And by doing so in this dream, King Nebuchadnezzar saw it, or at least a portion of it.
But the king didn't understand what he saw.
In the dream, God pulled the future back.
God let King Nebuchadnezzar see the future.
But the king didn't understand what he saw, and it was similar to how we may see Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Where they're right in front of us, we see them, but we can't interpret their meaning.
We don't understand the significance of what they're trying to say.
So, God let both men, Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel, see the future unclothed.
But God only gave Daniel the understanding of what he saw.
To show Nebuchadnezzar that God gives his word through his people, the Jews, and specifically through Jewish prophets.
Daniel said, "Thou, O king, sawest."
At this point, I'm sure King Nebuchadnezzar was on pins and needles.
"Thou, O king, sawest."
What did I see?
What did I see?
Can he tell me?
Can he really tell me what I saw?
Wondering if Daniel is really going to be able to tell him what he saw in his dream.
And Daniel knows what the king saw in his dream, Because God gave Daniel the same dream.
If a man went to a movie theater on Monday, and saw a particular movie, and then you went to that same theater on Friday, and you saw the same movie, then you're going to know what the other man saw.
And God showed them the dream different nights.
But Daniel and the king saw the same dream.
"King, here's what you saw.
You saw the unclothed future.
You look, look back in your text now, and behold a great image."
Underscore the word "image".
"Behold a great image."
The Hebrew word translated "image" here, it comes from a root word that means "to shade."
To shade.
Now what do we do when we shade something?
To shade something is to prevent it from being exposed to direct sunlight.
Man, here in Texas, we all know what a shade is.
We love getting in that shade.
And if we sit in the shade outside under a shade tree, we're sitting in the tree's shadow, right?
That's the shade.
So, the shade may... it's going to have little leaves on it, and if it blows, the wind blows the leaves, and that shade is going to kind of do like that.
But we're actually sitting in the tree's shade.
Now, when we're sitting in the tree's shade, we don't have our flashlight out, do we?
We're not sitting in the dark.
At the same time, we're not sitting in the tree.
We're sitting in the shade of the tree.
It resembles the tree, but it's not the tree.
But by looking at the shade, we can see the tree's similarity.
We can see a resemblance of that tree.
A tree shades us with its shadow, And that's what this Hebrew word means that's translated "image" here.
"You saw a great shade, king."
Daniel is saying, "King, in your dream you saw a great shadow."
And shadow is very important when it comes to Bible prophecy.
It's all through Scriptures.
The way God reveals things to us are through shadowy prophecies.
The king didn't see the future directly.
It wasn't like he was watching a movie and just watching the future unfold.
But he saw it in a shadowy figure, in a representation of the future.
The king wasn't sitting in the future's tree, he was sitting in the future's shade.
Make sense?
So this image is a visual representation of what lies ahead.
Because it is not God's will that we see the last days directly.
As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, God designed the future to be like a road trip.
And the road trip we've never been on before.
In Bible prophecies like this, like these images, these shadows, they tell us our destination.
They give us the purpose of our trip.
They let us see the trip on a road map.
So you ever put in a destination on your phone or in your GPS and boop, it pops up where you are, it pops up the city you're going to, and it shows you all the little twists and turns you're going to take along the way.
But it's not the same as taking the trip, is it?
There's a lot of detail that's left out.
You gonna pass any wrecks up along the way?
Are there gonna be any wildflowers on the side of the road?
You know, what's this gonna be like?
What's the traffic gonna be like?
All that is left out.
Am I gonna be hungry when I get to a certain spot here?
We don't know any of those things, but we see a glimpse of the trip ahead of us.
And that's what Bible prophecy gives us.
The finer details of the trip, The finer details of our future and of the last days of this world can only be experienced by traveling the miles, by taking the trip ourselves, and letting God reveal it to us in time.
And because of that, when we study Bible prophecy, we don't know exactly how things are going to look.
Anybody that gets up and tells you exactly what's going to take place, Man, they don't know.
Anyone that gets up and tries to describe the tree, instead of showing you the shadow, don't listen to them.
And I've learned over the past few decades now, that people will get up, preachers will get up, and they'll start telling you exactly what's going to take place.
And then a year or so passes by, it doesn't take place, and they just keep on telling you, and just switch the preaching up and change the... and they never stop.
And they're all just these prophecy experts and they don't understand what they're preaching.
And after a while, you know what happens?
People... they either continue to listen and hope that what they're going to say has come true or they just give up and think, "Ah, it's just a bunch of nonsense."
The prophecy is not nonsense, but the preacher is.
The Bible says this image was what kind of image?
It was a great image, a great image.
And in the Hebrew that doesn't mean "Oh great!"
It means it was very large in stature.
This was a big, big image and this means that the image, the shadowy representation of the future, it represents something much bigger than King Nebuchadnezzar, and much bigger than you and me.
Daniel went on to describe the image saying, look back in your text, "This great image whose brightness was excellent."
So King Nebuchadnezzar sees a great image, a great shadowy figure, And the brightness of this great image was excellent.
Whatever this image represents was big.
And it was bright.
And the Hebrew word translated brightness here doesn't mean bright in the sense of being shiny.
Not like a bright flashlight.
It means bright in the sense of being glorious.
Glorious.
And to understand the significance of what this language means in this prophecy, then we need to see how the Holy Spirit applied this same description to the glory of King Nebuchadnezzar that he had as king of Babylon.
Shortly after learning what this dream meant, King Nebuchadnezzar got very proud in his heart.
So God humbled him.
He humbled him a lot.
He removed him from the throne and he cast him down to a place of great humility.
And we'll learn about that as we go through the book of Daniel.
And after God taught Nebuchadnezzar a lesson, God restored him back to his throne as king.
And I want you to listen in Daniel chapter 4 to how King Nebuchadnezzar himself described his restoration to his throne.
In Daniel 4 verse 36, the king said, and this is King Nebuchadnezzar speaking here in this verse, he said, "At the same time my reason returned unto me, and for the glory," notice the word glory, "for the glory of my kingdom, mine honor and..." see that word, brightness?
"brightness returned unto me, and my counselors and my Lord sought unto me, and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me."
Last week, our president traveled in the Middle East and talked to Middle Eastern leaders over there.
And he went to Dubai.
Dubai has the largest building on earth, largest tower on earth.
And do you all see what they did with that tower?
Got a few heads shaking.
It's beautiful.
To honor our nation and our president's political power, they had that entire tallest tower in the world lit up as a beautiful waving American flag.
It was beautiful.
Now do you know what that was?
That was brightness.
That was the brightness of the leader's power.
That was them giving glory and honor to that political power when he flew in.
Make sense?
So when King Nebuchadnezzar is looking at this great big image, it had brightness.
Means it had glory.
It had political power.
And it resonated.
And whenever you looked at it, you could look at it like that flag on that tall building and say, "Wow!
This is really something to behold.
This is something to respect.
This is something to fear.
This is something to bow down to, if you're of the world."
And so, King Nebuchadnezzar said, for the glory of my kingdom, mine honor and brightness return to me."
And so the brightness here of this image is speaking of the glory of the kingdom this image represents.
You with me?
Brightness refers to the glory King Nebuchadnezzar possessed as the ruler of the world empire. in this particular verse when he spoke of his own brightness, and this is going to be important for us to remember when we get further into the book of Daniel, so just put that back away in the back of your head.
So now we have a good idea of what the image was that King Nebuchadnezzar saw.
We have a good idea of what that image represents.
It represents a ruling power that is very big and very glorious on the earth.
The image represents the highest order of the secular world system.
It's the highest order because Daniel said the brightness of the image was what?
Whose brightness was what?
Excellent.
You see that word excellent?
Excellent.
Meaning it exceeded every other earthly power.
Now at this point, it would be good for us to remind ourselves that this dream concerns things which will come to pass.
Remember?
It is a prophetic revelation about the ruling power of this world that will come to pass. the power that is, the power that shall be, the power that shall come to pass.
Daniel said, "This great, exceedingly glorious representation of earthly power," look back in your text, "stood before thee."
He said, "It stood before you, king."
The image stood before Nebuchadnezzar.
The image wasn't being viewed by Nebuchadnezzar in third person.
Nebuchadnezzar wasn't watching a screen and watching that image on the screen.
No, this image was up close and personal with the king.
The image was standing right in front of King Nebuchadnezzar.
Look back in your text.
"And the form thereof was terrible."
We see "terrible" here.
We have to have the idea.
Think back in our English language.
Terrifying.
Terrifying.
Terrific.
We say terrific like something's really great, but really it means terrific in the sense of it's terrifying.
So the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had was a nightmare.
It's a frightening nightmare.
No wonder he was so troubled by it.
And no wonder he had to have the understanding of it.
Because this image is confronting Nebuchadnezzar, and it was a very scary-looking image.
Powerful, glorious in some sense, but at the same time, very frightening.
The Hebrew word translated "terrible" here, in the Hebrew it has the idea of a person slinking down in fear.
Say you got somebody, they're in their chair, and they're out in the audience, and someone starts pointing them out.
"You want some of this?
I'll come get you."
And that person just starts slinking down in their chair like, "I wish I wasn't here.
Never mind me, I'm not here."
So, when Nebuchadnezzar saw this dream, he saw this image.
It made him want to just slink down like this.
And cower down.
The king cowering down.
And now we learn, by looking at this dream here, We learn that the image represents a great, glorious, global superpower that's terrifying to all who come against it.
And Daniel said, verse 32, "This image's head was of fine gold."
This image represents, therefore, a great, glorious, global, and terrifying superpower.
And now we learn in verse 32 that it represents a living creature.
Because it has a head.
It's alive.
And fascinatingly, the body parts of this living creature are all made from different materials.
The head of the living creature was a fine gold.
Which means it was excellent and very valuable.
And now Daniel works his way down the body of this living creature describing it.
He says his head was of fine gold, look back at your text, and his breast and his arms of silver.
We're looking at the image of a man.
Not an animal.
It's got breast and arms.
This is a man.
And his breast and his arms, or his chest and his arms, are of silver.
Daniel continues to work his way down the image.
He says, "His head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, and..."
Look back in your text, "his belly and his thighs of brass."
We're almost down to the end here.
His belly and his thighs were of brass.
This is a man alright.
So now what do we know about this image?
I believe this.
This image is so complex.
But there's a man, one man, behind the power of this secular kingdom.
Just keep that in mind.
There's a man behind the power of the secular kingdom.
Now, don't confuse this superpower with the kingdom of God.
It would be very easy for us to look and say, "Well, it's exceedingly glorious, Nebuchadnezzar shrinks back in fear at it.
Maybe the man represents Jesus, and this is the kingdom of God, how everything's going to end.
No, that's not what it is.
It's a challenger to Jesus.
It's a man who challenges a man.
Now, when you get to the book of the Revelation, you'll see the same thing.
You'll have the Son of Man, you'll have the man of sin.
You see?
So, just keep that in mind for now.
Let's get back to our text now.
We don't want to get ahead of ourselves.
So, we know that it represents a great, glorious, global, and terrifying super power.
And behind this power is a man.
And it is not the kingdom of God, it's the kingdom of fallen man here on earth.
And once again, we must remember that this image is a prophetic image.
Remember, God gave it to show Nebuchadnezzar the things which would come to pass.
So as Daniel is working his way down the image from the head to the chest and the arms to the belly and the thighs, Daniel is working his way down the timeline of this world.
If we were watching an image like this, a lot of times when you're watching a movie, the person making the film has to communicate the passage of time.
In some of the old movies, they would have a calendar up here.
You know, you would tear the days off the calendar each day, or the months, and it'll show like a wind blowing, and you'll just see all the days flying off the calendar.
That's one way of showing the passage of time.
Or there's other ways of showing the passage of time.
Sometimes you'll see a clock.
And it'll go "woo-woo-woo" like that, and show the passage of time.
Or an hourglass.
Here, showing the passage of time, Daniel starts at the top, the head of gold.
As he's moving down, he's showing the passage of time.
Well, guess what?
We're going to learn next week what comes at the end of that man?
The feet.
And the feet represent the end of time.
You see?
So as we're working our way down, we're indicating the passage of time.
So Daniel is working his way down the image and he's working his way down the timeline of this world and I want you to notice something else.
Do you notice anything significant about the metal of each piece?
Yeah.
Is the quality of the metal getting superior or inferior?
Is it getting better or worse?
It's getting worse.
The quality of the metal is going from superior to inferior as Daniel works his way down the timeline of this image.
Thus the power and glory of man with the passage of time, it's not improving with time, it is decreasing with time.
Now let's notice one last thing before we close this morning.
Notice that Daniel is naming each piece of this image.
He's sectioning the image off and describing each piece made up of a different type of component.
So he's naming each piece of this image as he works his way down the image, each piece changes as it goes.
We go from a head of gold, chest and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, and we'll get back into this next week and we'll watch the continued change.
And this is because the The kingdoms of men with time are always changing.
They're always changing.
One falls, one dominant power falls, and another rises to take its place.
The political power of this world, when Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, this initiated this secular power.
We see back in the book of Genesis, we see this lust for power, this attempt for man to come in and put all the world under his feet.
And we saw it first with a ruler named Nimrod at the Tower of Babel.
That was in Genesis.
That was the first glimpse we get of this image right here of one man trying to get the whole world under his power.
And he builds the Tower of Babel, God comes down and destroys it and scatters everyone across the face of the earth.
But then over time, what do we have?
We have these world empires that take form.
They take a different form.
And they move from one world empire to another world empire to another world empire.
But behind all of that change in political power is the devil.
He's the one behind every bit of it.
So the pieces change, but the image, the creature is the same.
Does that make sense?
You don't change creatures.
He didn't say, "You saw an image and then that image went away and then another image came.
And after that came another image."
No.
It's the same image from top to bottom, from the head to the toe.
It's the same fellow.
But as you go through the passage of time, you see that the power of that ruler that rules on this against God is the same person behind it all.
You see how that works?
And so when you get to the book of the Revelation, it's going to be that man of sin, the son of perdition.
You're going to see all that start to come to effect.
And it's all fueled by the same person, the devil, the great dragon, the same one from the Garden of Eden is being represented here All the form of that power that comes in the form of worldly leaders of men changes as time goes.
And it's not getting better.
It's getting worse.
Nebuchadnezzar and that earthly power is always changing over time.
And it's degrading over time.
There is no earthly power that can continue forever.
None.
That includes Nebuchadnezzar's power, that includes America's power, it includes our powers as individuals, and God willing, we will continue our study of this marvelous and intriguing dream next Sunday.
Working our way down this incredible image.
Father, we thank you so much for your Word.
We thank you, God, for giving us such striking details, such striking representations.
Thank you, Lord, for making them so poignant, so powerful, Lord, to us that we look at it, Lord, and we just stand amazed, and like Nebuchadnezzar, our mouths kind of drop open.
Thank You Lord that You give us the dream and the interpretation at the same time.
We're very grateful for that.
Thank You Lord that You don't leave Your people looking at the hieroglyphics.
You give them the ability to decipher them with Your Word.
We thank You Father God that no matter what power raises itself up on earth today, no matter what form and shape the world power takes or who's behind it.
We know Lord that Thy kingdom will come and Thy will will be done in earth as it is in heaven in the end.
We thank you in Jesus' name.
Amen.
