Verse by verse teaching - Daniel 2:39,40 "Another Kingdom"

We'll be in the book of Daniel chapter 2 this morning. Daniel chapter 2. God willing we'll be expounding verses 39 and 40. Daniel chapter 2 verses 39 and 40. The Tile of the Mess this morning is another kingdom. Another kingdom. In our verses this morning, Daniel is continuing to interpret the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had. Last week, Nebuchadnezzar's interpretation began where the dream began, with the head of gold. Now, if you haven't been here for the past few weeks, you might enjoy going back and listening to the recorded messages in this chapter. It'll shine a whole lot more light. But for time's sake, we can't go back and repeat and repeat every week. But, Daniel began his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, the dream God gave Nebuchadnezzar. He began where the dream began, that was with the head of gold. And remember, Nebuchadnezzar dreamt a dream of an image that was an image of a man. And the image had a head that was gold, it had arms and a chest that were silver, it had a belly and thighs that were brass, it had legs of iron and feet that were part iron and part clay and toes that were the same way. And we learned that King Nebuchadnezzar Represented by that head of gold now. This is a prophecy this dream was a prophecy it speaks of the future to come and This head of gold was the depiction of King Nebuchadnezzar and the marvelous world empire that God gave him in verses 37 and 38 last week we read Daniel said thou o king art a king of kings "For the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And where soever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the heaven, hath he given unto thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold." But the image doesn't end at the head of the gold, so Daniel's interpretation must continue to work its way from the top of the image of the head all the way down to the feet. And remember now, as we're moving down the image, we're moving down into the future, down in time. The current time was the head of gold, Nebuchadnezzar's reign as the king of Babylon. Past Nebuchadnezzar comes a future time, all the way down the image. And so Daniel's interpretation continues down to the bottom of the image into the future that lies ahead. So after establishing the fact that the head of gold was King Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel then told Nebuchadnezzar in verse 39, "And after thee..." See that? "And after thee..." Three simple words providing a lot of sobering truth. Daniel said, "After you, King Nebuchadnezzar..." And that's a kinder way of saying, "Your time, King Nebuchadnezzar, is coming to an end. You are going to die, and after you die, the world will keep on going without you." And you know what Daniel is telling Nebuchadnezzar can be told to every one of us, isn't that right? "After you, you're only here for a short while, king. Your significance to world power, Nebuchadnezzar, is going to be short-lived. You're only here for a while, and then after you, there will be someone else. And listen, whatever significance we think that we hold in this world today, you may think you hold some real significance in this world today. But the fact is, our time in this world is brief. You are replaceable. We are replaceable and someone's going to come after us. Brother Hensley was up here for 40 years. Someone came after him. Someone's going to come after me. It's just going to happen. Many people have retired from work thinking that their legacy is just going to go on for a long time after they're gone. It doesn't happen. Doesn't happen. They may have even wondered if the company or the agency could even run without them. But let me tell you how it really works. As soon as you're gone, someone will replace you. A few years after you're gone, some people won't even know you. You may go back to visit and say hello to your old co-workers. We have people coming and do that at work. We'll have some former co-workers come back up there. But each time that you go back to visit your co-workers at your old job, there's going to be fewer and fewer people left Because other people will have replaced them too and instead of receiving Smiles and hugs and oh hello whenever you walk in You're gonna start receiving Hello, sir. Hello. Hello, ma'am. May I help you? That's what you're gonna start getting from complete strangers who now work there Before I retired from the state, I was very, very busy and they had me doing a lot of stuff, writing operating procedure and stuff, for metal recycling, and you know, I felt honored that I was asked to do that. And a few weeks after I retired from the state, I was at the courthouse working, and one of our investigators called me and asked me a question. and he wanted to know a legal question on how to do something, and how the law applied. Few people in the state knew how to do the job that I'd been doing. And you know, I thought, "Well, that's really nice, you know, they're still calling and asking. They'll probably be doing that for a long time. Listen, today nobody calls and nobody cares. Everyone's getting along just fine without me." Daniel said, "King, after you." And listen, one day there's going to be an "after you." "After you," he said, look back in your text, "shall arise another kingdom." Now watch this, remember this is prophecy. Daniel didn't say, "After you shall arise another king." He said, "After you shall arise another kingdom." What's the difference? Well, if this was a kingdom and I was the king, and I died, y'all know we've already voted if I fall down dead today, Brother Shepherd's the pastor. Associate pastor becomes the pastor. Let's say I was the king and I died, Brother Shepherd became the king and this was the kingdom. Then there would be another king after me. God told Nebuchadnezzar, "After you, there'll be another kingdom." You know what that means? That means the kingdom that Nebuchadnezzar was over was coming to an end. It's coming to an end. It's about to lose its power in the world. And you may think, "Man, we live in a nation that's powerful, that can protect itself." That's the way they felt in Babylon too. And it fell. Fell just like that. And we'll learn that as we go through the book of Daniel. But after you shall arise another kingdom, not only would Nebuchadnezzar come to an end and be replaced, but the kingdom he built would come to an end and be replaced. Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon, a world empire. But another kingdom was on its way. When a judge retires at our courthouse, they get a nice portrait. to hang up that judge alongside the other judges that used to work in that courtroom, and have that courtroom, and they'll be prominently displayed in that courtroom from now on, at least they think. The legacy has to continue. They do the same thing in the White House for a president. But there won't be any portrait of King Nebuchadnezzar hanging up anywhere. even if they had paintings back then. Because he's not simply being replaced as king. The entire kingdom of Babylon is coming down. Not long after he's dead. There's no legacy for a judge if the court system is destroyed and replaced by a foreign court system. There's no legacy for a president if his nation is destroyed and replaced by another nation. Every kingdom in this world, this is what we're learning from this prophecy. Every kingdom in this world and every institution that belongs to them is coming to an end. So don't identify yourself by your achievements in this world. Because this world is coming to an end. You make sure that your identity, make sure that your work, the things that you build and you accomplish in life, Make sure that your reward is in an eternal kingdom. An eternal kingdom. One that cannot come to an end. There's no legacy for people whose identity is in an earthly kingdom that's going to be destroyed and replaced with a heavenly kingdom. Daniel said, "Another kingdom shall arise." Now look back in your text. What kind of kingdom would this be? One that's what? Inferior to thee. "inferior to thee." Take your pen and underscore the word "arise." Underscore the word "arise." So another kingdom is going to arise, and it's going to be inferior. The Chaldean word translated "inferior" here literally means the earth. It'll be the earth to thee. The lower a kingdom is, the closer it is to the earth. That's the idea here. Another kingdom would arise from the earth, but it would not rise as high as the kingdom of Babylon, which Nebuchadnezzar ruled at that time. The further this image goes, the closer to the earth the kingdoms are. You see what's happening? That means the more lower end they become. when we're talking about people. We have upper class, we have lower class. Same thing with these kingdoms. The highest head of gold was the kingdom of Babylon, that was the upper class kingdom, and every time that kingdom is replaced, it's by a lower end kingdom until it all gets all the way down to the ground, which is close to the end of the world. Now, the reason we're seeing this is to let us know that ever since the devil tempted Adam in the Garden of Eden. That was the devil attempting to establish his kingdom that he started in heaven on earth. The devil established a kingdom in heaven when he got a third of the angels to follow him in his rebellion against God. The devil then became a king of an opposing kingdom of the kingdom of heaven. The devil then came to earth, and in earth he's trying to establish his territory, his domain here on earth, so he gets Adam and Eve to follow in his temptation, to follow his rebellion against God. And in so doing, he establishes a rebellious kingdom of this world that's in opposition to the kingdom of God. And so as you go through the book of Genesis, you finally come up to this kingdom that was called Babel. Babel. That's where they built the Tower of Babel. And that was a kingdom that stood in opposition to the one true God. The Tower of Babel had a false worship system, and at the top of that tower is where they would offer up sacrifices to a false God. So that was a one-world empire that was set in opposition to the Kingdom of Heaven. God destroyed that kingdom, Scattered people, changed their languages, scattered them across the world, so they wouldn't continue on as planned. But ever since that time, the devil has had one objective. To gather all people under his command, to operate a one world government that he is the central figure of. And that one world government would stand in opposition to the Kingdom of God. What we see today is literally good versus evil. We see lawlessness versus law. Good versus evil. And so that's why a lot of the lawless people, you can see almost hand-in-hand every time. You will see homosexuality. You will see abortion, the destruction of people's children. You will see all this lawlessness that goes hand-in-hand together against God's Word. And whenever you have the lawless people in charge, they have a love affair with big government. And they want so much to join all the nations together. They hate the idea of national sovereignty. They want all the nations to join together, and that is the spirit of Antichrist who's trying to once again bring all the nations back together. Now here's what happens. As you go further in time, the strength of this global force against God begins to wane. It begins to get chaotic. And so what's happening is we're learning that the devil is not going to be successful in his opposition to God. God's kingdom in the end is going to win. it's going to rule. And so, that's what we're learning as we're going down this image here. Now watch. Another kingdom would arise from the earth, but it would not be as high or as lofty as the kingdom of Babylon. And the further this image goes, again, the more lower in these nations, these kingdoms become. And this increasing inferiority again shows the diminishing scope of power that world governments would possess. Don't look at the United States and think, "Oh, Babylon couldn't have possibly been as powerful as the United States of America." Let me tell you something. You think, "Oh, just look at the weapons and the science and the technology that we have today in the United States." Listen, the United States of America doesn't hold a candle to the splendor and power of the kingdom of Babylon at that time. So, but we have supersonic weapons, we have nuclear war power, we have airplanes and all these things. They didn't have those things. You know what? The kingdom of Babylon, the empire of Babylon had world dominance without all those things. We have all those weapons and we can't even run our own country. You see what's happening? As you go down the image, it gets weaker and weaker and weaker. It goes from gold to silver to brass to iron to iron mixed with clay. To where finally at the end of the dream, a stone comes, hits the image on the feet, and it all breaks apart. And we learned in the previous weeks that that stone was Jesus coming and smiting the image on the feet. And that means all the world powers that have ever come God, all the kingdoms of men. Brother Shepherd correctly taught this morning in Sunday School that the idea of separation of church and state is wrong. When Jesus comes again, it's going to be the marriage of church and state. Because Jesus is not only going to be Savior, He's going to be King. The whole reason we have this mess today is because God was supposed to have been king in the Garden of Eden. And Adam and Eve said, "We're not going to have him reign over us. We'll do our thing." And ever since that time, we have been struggling and it won't be until God becomes king of this world again, and king on the throne of our hearts, and on the throne of this world, that this world's going to be fixed. That's why Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." Babylon was the head of gold, and then an inferior kingdom would come after it. And now look back in your text, and then Daniel said, "And another third kingdom." So not only would another kingdom come that was inferior, it would be silver, but now a third kingdom is going to come, and that's going to be even more inferior than that other kingdom. It's going to take that other kingdom's place. It would be represented, look, back another kingdom of what? Of brass. Silver is inferior to gold, brass is inferior to silver. So it means that it would also be inferior to the second kingdom. Yet even the third kingdom would be more spectacular and powerful than the United States of America or any nation in Europe or China or anywhere else. which comes many, many years down the line. For these earlier kingdoms were those that Daniel said, look back in your text, "which shall bear rule over..." what? Part of the earth? All the earth. All the earth. Listen, does the United States bear rule over all the earth? Man, they can't even pass one big beautiful bill. I mean, We're trying to make trade deals with other nations. That's not rule. "Shall bear rule over all the earth." King, you are the head of gold. You're the head of gold. You're the empire of Babylon. But after you, the empire of Babylon is going to fall. Another kingdom is going to come after you. It'll be inferior to Babylon. Then another king will come after that kingdom. they're going to rule over all the earth. You see? They're going to have world dominance. It's going to be passed down from Babylon to another kingdom to another kingdom. And I'm not going to go into those kingdoms right now because we're going to do that in detail next week. But it's going to be a rule over all the earth. In verse 38 Daniel said, "And where soever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given unto with thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all." Daniel couldn't say that to the President of the United States. Daniel couldn't say that to any world ruler today. President Trump loves to make deals with other nations, but these nations didn't make deals with anybody. Instead of saying, "Let's make a deal," they said, "Now, hey, here's the deal. Here's how things are going to be." They ruled over the entire world. Now, at the end of time, when you go to the book of the Revelation, you're going to have the devil give one last shot prior to the Millennial reign. One last shot at gathering all the world together to unify them in opposition to God again. It's going to happen one last time prior to the reign of Christ on earth. And this is what all this is pictured here in this dream. So one king ruled over all the earth back then and then there were other kings under him. And with all the military, technology, science, and discoveries our nation has made in the past 200 years, we still can't govern the whole world. So world power is not getting better, it's getting worse. Daniel now continues to move forward in time again telling King Nebuchadnezzar, look in verse 40, "And the fourth kingdom..." The fourth kingdom. So one kingdom falls, another kingdom rises, and Daniel said the fourth kingdom, look back at your text, "shall be strong as iron." That's why it's symbolized by iron. Iron is the cheapest metal at the scrapyard, but it's the strongest metal at the scrapyard. Gold, silver, and brass, which were represented in this dream, are more corrosion resistant than iron. They conduct electricity better than iron. They are more beautiful than iron. So iron is the strongest, But it's not the best, you see? The fourth kingdom won't be as splendid as the first three, but it will be brutal. Look in your text, at verse 40, "And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron, for as much as iron breaketh in pieces, and subdueth all things." Take your pen and underscore, "breaketh and subdueth." Break and subdue. That's what the fourth kingdom is going to do. The fourth kingdom is going to be known not just for ruling over the world, but for breaking and subduing other nations. Crushing them beneath their brutal force. The brutality of the fourth kingdom is the last kingdom in this image. So it takes us to a specific time in history. Daniel went on to say, "And as iron that breaketh all these," meaning as iron being harder than the previous metals, gold, silver, and brass. And it can break all these things. "Shall it," that is, "shall the fourth kingdom break in pieces and bruise?" Underscore "break in pieces and bruise." Circle the word "bruise." If you've been through the Genesis of Jesus class, this is why we teach this class for you coming here. The idea is that the previous kingdoms and any other opposing kingdom would be broken and bruised by this fourth kingdom. In the sense that they would be broken to pieces, which is what that word "bruised" means. When we think of bruise today, we naturally think of a contusion on our body, where we have a black or a blue mark, and that is a bruise. But the idea behind bruising here, originally with that word "bruise," has the idea of breaking and crushing. I want you to listen as I read to you the 1828 Webster Dictionary definition of bruise. You know it doesn't have anything about Brother Shepherd in there. "To crush by beating or pounding with an instrument not edged or pointed. When applied to minerals and similar substances, it signifies to break them and often reduce them to a coarse powder." bruise. The last kingdom is striving for total world dominance and it wants to crush the opposition to powder and leave nothing but its empire ruling in the world. But at the end of this dream, this is where the kingdom that gets smoked on the feet by stone, remember? And the whole image breaks into powdery pieces. So the image, the kingdom that was trying to crush everything to powder in the end gets crushed to powder. The stone that breaks the image is Jesus. Luke chapter 20, if you look up here on the screen, Luke chapter 20, listen as I read to you verses 17 and 18. "And He, that is Jesus, beheld them and said, 'What is this then that is written?'" He's going to quote a scripture in the Old Testament. Jesus is about to quote the Old Testament. "The stone which the builders rejected, the same has become the head of the corner." There was a prophecy in the Old Testament that the coming Savior would be rejected like a stone rejected for being used in a building. But after being rejected, it ends up becoming the main stone in the building. Now, that's Jesus. Jesus is currently rejected by the Jews. He was rejected by the Romans. He was rejected by the world when He came, but He'll end up being the main stone in the building of God. The stone that breaks the image is Jesus. Jesus said in Luke 20,17, He said, "The stone which the builders rejected, the same has become the head of the corner." Verse 18, "Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall," whoever Jesus shall fall on, "it," the stone, "will grind him to powder." In other words, it will bruise him. Bruise him. Crush him to a coarse powder. Near the bottom of the image, the image is bruising. But in the end, the image gets bruised. Jesus bruises the image from toe to head. We will look at these kingdoms in detail as we continue our study this dream next week. But for now, I want you to understand that the fourth kingdom in this dream, in this image, was the brutal Roman Empire. The fourth kingdom, this kingdom of iron, is the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was an empire that would bruise its opposition, and it did. And it was this Roman Empire that crucified the Lord Jesus Christ. Pontius Pilate, under the authority of Caesar, the ruler of this iron kingdom is the one that crucified the Lord Jesus Christ in agreement with the Jews. Through the Roman Empire Satan bruised King Jesus. You see what's happening? Jesus didn't just come as Savior, He came as King. He came as the King of Heaven to earth so he could rule earth and what did the world do? It rejected Jesus and it embraced Caesar, the head of the Iron Kingdom. It was in complete agreement with this image here in Daniel. And so when Jesus came, Satan bruised King Jesus who came to reign on David's throne. Listen to this amazing discourse in the Gospel of John chapter 19, verse 14 and 15. "And it was the preparation of the Passover..." This is when Jesus was about to be crucified. "And it was the preparation of the Passover, and about the sixth hour he saith unto the Jews, 'Behold, you're what? You're king.'" Now that's very significant. That's not in there by accident. This is the stone coming as king. Okay? And he says, "Behold your king." Jesus was their promised king who came to fulfill the prophecy that Daniel gave about the stone becoming a great mountain and filling the earth. Verse 15, "But they cried out, 'Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him! Pilate, that is the authority under Caesar, that Roman Empire, that iron empire, "Pilate said unto them, Shall I crucify your king?" He keeps pointing it back to the king. "The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar." So what they were saying was, we're rejecting him as our king, the stone the builders rejected, and we're embracing the king of this Iron Empire. Caesar was the ruler of the Roman Empire who crucified the promised King of the Jews. When Jesus died on the cross he was bruised by Satan. Crushed to powder through the Roman Empire. His body was broken. Remember what he said when he took the bread at the Last Supper? He took the bread and what did He do? He broke it! He said, "Take, eat. This is my body which is broken for you, which is bruised for you. Take and eat it." So when Jesus died on the cross, Satan bruised the Lord Jesus Christ, fulfilling God's Word to Satan back in Genesis 3:15. where God told the devil, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It, the woman's seed, shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." When Jesus died on the cross, Satan in that Roman Empire, that empire of iron crushed the head. The stone was rejected and the stone was crushed. The heel of Jesus was bruised by the devil. When Jesus died, His heel was bruised. Isaiah chapter 53 verse 5a. Isaiah 53 5a. Listen to what it says of This is prophesying of Jesus to come. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was, say it with me, bruised for our iniquities. Man, if that doesn't prove what we're talking about, nothing will. When Jesus was on the cross, that was the bruising that He received. He received it through the Roman government, which was that iron empire at that time over all the earth. In fact, when you go back and read under Caesar Augustus, you will see that Caesar made a decree that all the world would be taxed. You see? Those were the kings that ruled over all the world just like Daniel said. It was... that last iron empire ruled all the earth. Man, could you imagine President Trump saying, "We're going to tax all the earth." They'd laugh at him. That's how the kingdoms have become so inferior down the road. And so now here we are, that iron kingdom, Jesus is rejected, Jesus dies on the cross, Jesus is bruised. And at some point in time, at the very end where those toes are, at the very end of that feet, that stone's got to come back and do some bruising itself. And God willing we're going to get back into this more next Sunday. I tell you what, I'm so glad I have a Bible. Next Sunday we're going to actually look what was the empire that was the empire of silver? What was the empire of brass? We're going to look at how all these transpired. What about the toes of the feet? What about the iron mixed with clay? How does all that work? Lord willing we'll learn that next week. Father we thank you so much for your precious word. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Father. Lord, I hate that Jesus had to be bruised, but God, I thank you that by Him being bruised, Lord, He will come back and bruise our enemies and put them under His feet. Thank you, Lord, that only His heel was bruised, but not His head. He's coming back to bruise the head of the devil, to put them out of commission forever. And Lord, I thank you so much for that. And I thank you for every person who came here today. And I pray, Lord, you'll give us a deep, clear understanding of your Word as we continue to study through it. In Jesus' wonderful name, Amen.