College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

Daniel 2 - Introduction

NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S DREAM

Daniel, Chapter Two

REPRESENTS IN ITS TOTALITY ALL HUMAN GOVERNMENT

The kingdom of God, the Church, conquers and supplants all human government and eventually destroys all other sovereignty and becomes the only government in the new earth. Human governments are inadequate to bring about man's regeneration and-' are, for the most part, opposed to God's purposes, although they are necessary for restraining unregenerate and lawless men. All this is the symbolical meaning of Nebuchadnezzar's dream and is the teaching of the Scriptures, especially the New Testament.

PARAPHRASE

And in the days of the fourth empire, the last of the great world empires which represent carnal world power, the God of heaven will set up His supernatural kingdom and His kingdom will be eternal. This kingdom will be unconquerable by anyone else and will always belong to the people of God. This kingdom will ultimately reign supreme, eventually destroying and consuming all carnal governments which are inadequate and opposed to God's rule of man. This kingdom will be eternal. This is the meaning, O king, of that part of your dream in which you saw the stone cut out of the mountain without hands breaking into pieces the image of iron, brass, clay, silver and gold. God has seen fit to reveal to you, Nebuchadnezzar what He is going to do in the future with carnal government and the setting up of His own rule in the hearts of menHis kingdom. My interpretation of your dream is as certain as my detailed revelation of what it was.

COMMENT

Daniel 2:44-45 AND IN THE DAYS OF THOSE KINGS SHALL THE GOD OF HEAVEN SET UP A KINGDOM. THE DREAM IS CERTAIN, AND THE INTERPRETATION THEREOF SURE. The first thing to notice is that the kingdom of God is of Divine origin and eternal duration. If it is to be established in the days of the Roman empire and be of eternal duration it cannot be a millennial kingdom for the millennium is allegedly only 1000 years of literal duration!

We quote from Young here: ... the words, in the days of those kings, would refer most naturally to the four kingdoms or kings represented by the image. This interpretation is clearly involved in the symbolism of the image (Daniel 2:45) and is permissible because, while distinct, these four kingdoms were also in a sense one. Medo-Persia conquered and incorporated Babylon. Greece did the same to Medo-Persia. the extent of the Roman Empire was far greater and more world-wide than any of the others, It was while the image was still standing that the blow was struck. So we may say that it was in the period of those four empires as together representing Gentile world dominion but in the days of the last of the four that the kingdom of Messiah was set up.

The whole picture then is that of God establishing His kingdom (the sovereignty or rule of God in the hearts of men through man's faithful response to the grace of Jesus Christ) and destroying the inadequate and opposing carnal worldly power which can never save or reunite man with God. And it all begins to happen during the days of the fourth world empire, Rome. All of this began, of course, when Christ was born, reached its climax when He was crucified when God despoiled the principalities and the powers. and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in Him (Colossians 2:15). It began receiving citizens on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) when the first gospel invitation was given and obeyed. That the church is God's kingdom cannot be denied by careful and unbiased students of the New Testament. That the church was established and that Christ was born and died and raised from the dead in the days of the Roman empire cannot be denied by anyone who has the slightest inkling of history. So the kingdom of God was begun in the days of the Roman empire and now wherever the gentle gospel is preached it has victory and is continuing to overthrow the kingdom of the god of this world. But it shall not reach its culmination until the second coming of Christ and the end of time (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:20 ff). Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.

Certain dispensational teachers today would interpret this passage to the effect that the fourth empire represents a revived Roman empire of the future which will come to an end by a sudden catastrophic judgment, after which the kingdom of God (an alleged millennial kingdom of Revelation 20:1-6) will be set up. The destruction of the Gentile world power, according to this view, occurs not at the first coming of Christ, but at the second. The New Testament plainly teaches that God has destroyed the power not only of the devil but all rule and authority previously able to hold the spirit of man in bondage and ignoranceif man will hear believe and heed God's message.

A few quotations from a dispensational teacher will suffice as documentation. Gaebelein writes: He (Christ at His first coming) did not smite the image; the image, so to speak, smote Him. The stone strikes the image, when the ten toes, the final ten kingdom division of the Roman Empire, are in existence. The stone which falls from above is the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, His coming in great power and glory,
Another dispensationalist, G. H. Lang, rejects the idea of a revived Roman empire but substitutes what might be called a revived Babylonian kingdom, with Babylon as the capital of Antichrist, for the fourth empire at which time God is supposed to set up a kingdom of a literal 1000 year duration.
One writer who calls himself a premillennialist, Robert D. Culver, in Daniel And the Latter Days, writes, The discerning reader will readily observe that. these systems (i.e. the interpretations of Allis, Leupold and Young) rest on a theory of church-kingdom identitythat the kingdom of God and the church are precisely identical. This is a position which cannot be sustained by Scripture, despite valiant attempts to make the Bible support it. It is inconceivable to us how any discerning reader of the New Testament can fail to observe that both Christ and the apostles clearly equated the kingdom of God and the church as one and the same. It seems clear that the dispensational and premillenial views of the kingdom of God miss completely the fact that the true significance of the kingdom of God is its spiritual nature.

Leupold sums up the meaning of the dream thusly: Heretofore all that history seemed to amount to was: kingdom conquering and replacing kingdom. That however, is not an inevitable, unalterable cycle. For a new power, not conditioned by man's control, shall come into operation and shall break the old order of things and establish a lasting and definite victory. On this victorious note the interpretation ends.
Thus the dream sketched the course of the history of the world in bold strokes. Ever since the kingdom of God was established and its power to change men into the image of God was demonstrated, men have still blundered along trying to establish a lasting world power. But each product of human effort shall go the way of all flesh including republics, democracies, united nations, etc., for none of them are sufficient for man's dilemmasin.

One of the arguments appealed to most by the dispensationalists is that the stone smashing the great image to dust speaks of violence and catastrophic overthrow of Gentile powerthis cannot be the gospel. But the main emphasis is not on violence but power. Certainly the gospel has power (cf. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5) and furthermore the Christian or citizen of the heavenly kingdom is not to use carnal warfare in destroying strongholds. Thus the dispensational view that at the second coming of Christ a great, catastrophic, violent battle at Armageddon, with carnal weapons of warfare will be fought and that this is the stone smashing the image to dust, has substituted the physical for the spiritual and has missed the entire spirit of the New Testament revelation of the kingdom of God! Please read the special studies of the Minor Prophets, College Press, on the subject of interpreting the prophets and pre-millennialism.

QUIZ

What is the first thing to notice concerning the kingdom which God would set up?

When, exactly, does this interpretation of Daniel say the kingdom of God would be set up?

What is the whole picture of the dream and its interpretation?

What significant aspect of the kingdom of God is neglected by the dispensational view of the dream?

Why is it not necessary to think that the kingdom of God's destruction of world-power must be violent and catastrophic?

SERMON NUMBER TWO
DESPOTS, DREAMS AND DESTINIES

Text: Daniel 2

INTRODUCTION

DANIEL HAD BECOME ONE OF THE WISE MEN OF BABYLON, A CHALDEAN

He had gone through a period of training

Involving learning Babylonian history and culture

Involving learning certain sciences

This does not mean, of course, that he practiced all the false, pagan superstitious divinations, etc.

He had made friends in influential places

He had been accompanied in his training by the other three Hebrew youths

The four together had found favor in the eyes of their teachers and were trusted

II.

BACKGROUND OF CHALDEANS

They were a group of pagan priests who used mysticism and superstition to practice their religion and science

In ancient Babylon even the king served as the High Priest

He performed sacrifices and determined the religious life of subjects

He appointed substitute priests to perform the routine priestly labors

Each temple had a high priest and a number of lesser priests

They used various methods of attempting to know the messages or oracles of their gods and to foretell the future

Astrologythe stars exerted a supposed influence over the fates of men and events; by observing their positions, conjunctions and oppositions, it might be ascertained what would be the destiny of individuals and nations

Necromancyconsisted in the belief that the dead must be acquainted with the world where they now dwell, so dark to the living, and that it might be possible to make a covenant or compact with the dead, by which they would be induced to disclose what they knew.

Divinationinterpreting dreams and determining oracles from the gods; one method used was Hepatoscopy, divination by the liverat the time of sacrifice a god was supposed to take hold of the victim and to enter the animal's liver because the liver was the seat of the mental life. After a kid or sheep was slaughtered sacrificially, the victim's body was opened and preliminary conclusions drawn. then it was removed from the body and examined more thoroughly, compared with models and abnormalities noted. They also studied flight patterns of birds for divining purposes.

Exorcisma class of priests known as ashipu specialized in counteracting the work of demons; one method was to promise the demon a gift and entice him to come outanother was to give the victim nauseous and putrid substances as medicines to drive the demon outsometimes they tried to fool the demons by placing animals on top of the sick peoplethey tried to scare them away by wearing redthen there were the chanters who tried to croon them out singing soothingly

The Babylonians placed a great emphasis on DREAMS

They believed that through the medium of dreams the Divine will might be made known and that the secrets of the future disclosed.

The theory was that during sleep the ordinary laws of the mind are suspended; the soul is abstracted from the visible world; the thoughts must then be originated by higher beings; in this state the dreamer has converse with an invisible world and sees much of what is future.

DISCUSSION

DESPOT'S DREAM

Challenge to the Chaldeans Daniel 2:1-6

God sent Nebuchadnezzar this dream directly A great God has made known to the king what shall be hereafter Daniel 2:45

The dream shook him uphe was in deep anxiety of spirit and soul. It was so vivid as to seem to be actually happening right then; IT WAS TERRIFYING!

He undoubtedly had some strange, inexplicable foreboding concerning the meaning of this dream and its symbolism

He called in his doctors of psychology; theology; etc.

He commanded, What have I dreamed? They replied, Tell us the dream and we will tell you what it means!

Now the king had not forgotten the dream, but he was probably tired of their hocus pocus and actually did not believe much of it; it may be that deep down inside himself, the king knew that most of the religion of Babylon was mere superstition and not truth HE WAS GOING TO FIND OUT ONCE AND FOR ALL IF THESE WISE MEN REALLY KNEW THE SECRETS OF THE GODS. IF THEY COULD TELL HIM WHAT HE DREAMED INSTEAD OF MAKING UP SOME EGO-FLATTERING INTERPRETATION, HE WOULD KNOW!

So this mighty, absolute, cold-blooded despot declared, If you do not tell me my dream AND its interpretation, I will have you hacked limb from limb, and your homes publicly desecrated.

Dilemma of the Diviners Daniel 2:7-11

The Chaldeans begin by stalling for time

The king recognized this and senses some sort of collaboration amongst them to speak words of deception, hoping to put him on until times and circumstances change. They are hoping the king's ugly mood will change.

They face a terrible dilemma. They must not say anything that might further irritate the king; on the other hand they must convey to the king that what he asks is totally unreasonable and impossible.

They know they cannot do what the king demands but they do not want the king to know it

Saved by the Subjugated Daniel 2:12-16

Well, the king was not amused, and he did not cool down

He took all their stalling he could and in a furious rage ordered that all the wise men be arrested and slain

It took a little while to round them all up

In the meantime Daniel and his three companions took steps to save themselves and the other wise men

Daniel, by faith in God's word to him, told the king's servant that he could reveal the king's dream and its interpretation

As a last resort he was allowed to approach the king and ask for an appointment

II.

DANIEL'S DECLARATION

Prayer Daniel 2:17-24

Daniel and his three companions ask God's blessing on their opportunity to witness to king Nebuchadnezzar the power of Jehovah

Daniel's prayer contains one of the most arresting passages of the O.T. speaking of the divine sovereignty and immutability of the purpose of God in the events of earth's history (Daniel 2:20-23)

Our God is the God of the Now! He determines rulers and seasons and the habitations of men. One dynasty influences world culture and wanes and disappears at the directing influence of God's immutable moral laws governing the universe, and another civilization comes to the fore (cf. Jeremiah 27:5 ff).

God creates both weal and woe (Isaiah 45:5-7)

God is able to reveal the future.the deep and secret thingsbecause all time and space and mass are within His knowledge and control at all timesall at once. He knows what is in man's mind and thought and heart because He, Himself, made man.

And Daniel's prayer was answered, Daniel persuades Arioch not to destroy the wise men, and asks to be taken to the king to tell the dream and its interpretation

Profession Daniel 2:25-30

What courage; what faith; WHO WOULD DARE TO STAND BEFORE THIS MIGHTY DESPOT UNLESS HE WERE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN HE COULD PRODUCE WHAT THE DESPOT WANTED!

But is this all Daniel did? Just tell the king his dream? Was Daniel only interested in telling the king in order that he not be slain with the other wise men?

No. Daniel had another purpose, higher than escape from deathHe purposed to witness to the king concerning His God, Jehovah

How easy it would have beenhow convenient-how practicalfor Daniel to claim all the credit for being able to tell the king his dreamBUT HE GAVE ALL THE CREDIT AND GLORY TO GOD

Publication Daniel 2:31-35

Notice how Arioch got in a little apple polishing on the side. He said he had found a Hebrew who could tell the king his dreamall the while it was Daniel who had found Arioch and asked to be taken to the king

He intimates to Nebuchadnezzar that what God sent to him in dream form was a prediction of future events of historywhat should come to pass hereafter.

So Daniel relates exactly what the dream was in detaila huge statue, like unto a man, head of gold, breast of silver, belly of brass (bronze) legs and feet of iron and clay.

Then he saw a stone, cut out without hands, and it smote the image, ground it to dust and it was all blown away; while the stone grew into a huge mountain, covering the earth.

III.

DICTATORSHIP'S DESTINY

First Three Kingdoms Daniel 2:36-39

Nebuchadnezzar, or more exactly, Babylon is the head of goldthe first representative of absolute world domination (cf. Jeremiah 27:5-7; Ezekiel 26:7)

Herodotus, at Babylon 90 years after the era of Neb., was amazed at all the gold there. Golden tables, statues, thrones, walls overlaid, some $100,000 worth just in the temples. SYMBOLIZING GLORY, SHOW!

Medo-Persian empire is next. It is the next great world empire. There was no empire of the Medes alone. All the concentration on building simply for magnificence changed to a desire for silver (money) for power's sake. As a consequence of hoarding silver this empire became rich as was prophesied in Daniel 11:2. The silver kingdom was stronger than the gold, Babylon lasted 70 years; Medo-Persia lasted over 200 years

But bronze was stronger than silver. This is the Greek empire. Ruled over the world to greater extent than any of the previous. The power of the Medo-Persian empire built upon wealth was overcome by the force of arms wielded by, brave, idealistic, free peoplethe Greeks. Josephus saw in the mention of a brazen kingdom an unmistakable prediction of the victorious arms of Alexander and his brazen-clad Greeks. Herodotus describes the striking difference between the brazen-clad Greek warriors and the Persians clad in soft hats, tunics with sleeves, and trousers.

In one sense we have in the symbolism a progressive inferiority in the metals from one world power to the next. But in another sense there is progressive symbolism of superiority. Progression downward in outward magnificence; progression upward in power and extension.

The Fourth Kingdom Daniel 2:40-43

Iron is very appropriate symbol to describe the Roman empire. We pass, generally speaking, from the bronze age to the iron age when we pass from Greece to Rome

The Roman infantry soldier of that era carried with him that distinctively Roman weapon the pilum, a sort of spear or javelin with a long iron neck fitted with a wooden shaft, the metal extending for about a third of its entire length.

The feature Daniel emphasizes in this empire is its strength. The Roman war machine was many times more destructive than any of its predecessors. Rome's ruthless severity is exemplified by the destruction of Carthage; the War against the Slaves; (when the Appian way was lined with 6000 crosses; and the siege and destruction of Jerusalem.)

Rome was not impressed by the pomposity and subtleties of the Eastern potentatesthe Romans acted with brashness and boldness.

The Roman empire lasted in its undivided state some 500 years.

But this kingdom was to become divided and weak

There is no mention of ten toes, so we are not forced to find ten specific succeeding emperors or empires coming from the Roman Ten. If we must place some assumed significance on the toes, would be symbolic of completeness. Ten represents the totality of however many successive kings or emperors there might be.

The phrase They shall mingle themselves with the seed of men refers to the attempts of the Roman empire to intermarry with the barbarian princes and princesses of the Germanic forests and central Europe in order to bring solidarity to the Roman empire. But it failed.

There will always be something of the firmness of iron in this fourth empire, but there shall always be present a lack of cohesion. NEVER AGAIN WILL A WORLD EMPIRE DOMINATE THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE EARTH IN A UNIVERSAL WAY LIKE THE BABYLONIAN, PERSIAN, GREEK OR EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE! World governments continue and all of them, more or less, come from Rome, but never again a universal one except the FIFTH!

THE IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER ABOUT THIS WHOLE IMAGE IS THAT ALL TOGETHER IT REPRESENTS SYMBOLICALLY PAGAN, HEATHEN, CARNAL WORLD-POWER IN OPPOSITION TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD. IT IS MAN'S RULE OVER MAN OPPOSED TO GOD'S RULE OVER MAN.

NOT THAT WORLDLY GOVERNMENTS ARE NOT NECESSARY AS TEMPORARY EXPEDIENTS DUE TO MAN'S SINFUL CONDITIONINDEED CARNAL GOVERNMENT IS NECESSARY TO RESTRAIN THE LAWLESS (1 Timothy 1:8-9; Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13-17). BUT ALL CARNAL GOVERNMENT IS, AT BEST TOTALLY INADEQUATE, AND AT WORST IN DIRECT OPPOSITION TO WHAT GOD HAS PURPOSED FOR MAN THROUGH REGENERATION, REPENTANCE AND RENEWED COMMUNION WITH HIM IN HIS NEW KINGDOM.

SO THE FOURTH EMPIRE REPRESENTS THE EARLY FEROCIOUS ROMAN EMPIRE, LATER DIVIDED INTO MANY SUCCESSIVE KINGDOMS YET UNABLE TO EVER AGAIN REGAIN THAT INNER UNITY NECESSARY TO DOMINATE THE WHOLE WORLD. THEN WE SEE THE WHOLE IMAGE WHICH REPRESENTS CARNAL GOVERNMENT DEALT A FATAL BLOW BY THE KINGDOM OF GOD (THE STONE) BEGINNING THE DAYS OF THE KINGS OF THE FOURTH EMPIRE AND EVENTUAL GRINDING THE WHOLE IMAGE INTO A DUST WHICH IS BLOWN AWAY!

The Final Kingdom (The Fifth Kingdom Universal) Daniel 2:44-45

Notice: It is of Divine origin; it is eternal in duration, IT CANNOT BE THE SO-CALLED MILLENIAL KINGDOM OF THE DISPENSATIONALISTS FOR THAT IS SUPPOSED TO LAST ONLY FOR A LITERAL 1000 Years.

In the days of those kings means that it was in the period of those four empires as together representing Gentile world domination, BUT IN THE DAYS OF THE LAST OF THE FOUR that the kingdom of Messiah was set up.

The whole picture is that of God establishing His kingdom (see sovereignty or rule of God in the hearts of men through man's faithful response to the grace of Jesus Christ) and destroying the inadequate and opposing carnal worldly power (ideas of men for man's salvation), which can never save or reunite man with God. And it all begins to happen during the days of the fourth world empire, Rome.

All of this began, of course, when Christ was born, reached its climax when He was crucified when God Despoiled the principalities and the powers. and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in Him (Colossians 2:15)

It began receiving its citizens on the Day of Pentecost, but it shall not reach its culmination until the Second Coming of Christ and the end of time Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. (1 Corinthians 15:20 ff)

Certain dispensational teachers today would teach that this passage the fourth empire represents a revived Roman empire of the future which will come to an end by a sudden catastrophic judgment, a literal war with literal weapons, led by a literal Christ upon a literal earth, reigning in a literal Jerusalem, after which the kingdom of God will be set up. The destruction of the Gentile world power, according to this view, occurs not at the first coming of Christ, but the second.

One such teacher says a revived Babylonian kingdom, with Babylon as the capital of Antichrist, is the fourth empire, and the Stone is the 1000 yr. kingdom of God.

One writer who calls himself a premillennialist writes, The discerning reader will readily observe that. these systems (i.e. the interpretations of Allis, Leupold and Young) rest upon a theory of church-kingdom identitythat the kingdom of God and the church are precisely identical. This is a position which cannot be sustained by Scripture, despite valiant attempts to make the Bible support it.

It is inconceivable to me how any Discerning reader of the N.T. cannot observe that both Christ and the apostles clearly equated the kingdom of God and the church as one and the same. It seems clear that the dispensational views of the kingdom of God miss completely the fact that the true significance of the kingdom of God is its spiritual nature (cf. Ephesians 6:10-13, etc.).

Felicitous King Daniel 2:46-49

The king seemed greatly relieved to know the interpretation of his dream

Perhaps he was relieved to know that there was nothing really foreboding toward him personally in this dream.

Perhaps he was simply relieved to have his mind's troubling anxiety to know set at rest.

I do not believe he had been converted from his polytheism to an acceptable loyalty to Jehovah-God as yet.

He did promote Daniel and his three companions and gave glory to Daniel's God. Daniel was making some progress in his personal evangelism.

CONCLUSION

IS THERE A LESSON IN NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S DREAM FOR US?

I believe that there is

I believe there are great lessons of faith, God's nature, and God's moral government of the universe to be learned from all the O.T.

I believe that we can see in the O.T. and the fulfillment of its prophecies, purpose, destiny, truth, holiness, and hope in man's future if man puts his future in the will of God

II.

WHAT IS THE LESSON OF THIS DREAM AND ITS INTERPRETATION?

Leupold sums up the meaning of the dream: Heretofore all that history seemed to amount to was: kingdom conquering and replacing kingdom. That however, is not an inevitable, unalterable cycle. For a new power, not conditioned by man's control, shall come into operation and shall break the old order of things and establish a lasting and definite victory.. On this victorious note the interpretation ends.

THUS THE DREAM SKETCHED THE COURSE OF THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN BOLD STROKES. IT PREDICTED HOW GOD WAS GOING TO SOLVE MAN'S DILEMMA, MAN'S NEED WHICH HUMAN GOVERNMENT COULD NOT SOLVE.

Even after the kingdom of God has been established and its power to change men into the image of God has been demonstrated, men have still blundered along trying to establish a lasting world power. But each product of human effort shall go the way of all flesh including republics, dictatorships, democracies, United Nations, etc., NONE OF THEM CAN CONQUER MAN'S ENEMY, SATAN AND SIN!

There is no need to think of a literal, violent, catastrophic war of the kingdom of God against world power in some millennial kingdom as the interpretation of this Stone

The gospel has the power to destroy strongholds and imaginations and every thought that exalts itself against God and to bring every thought into captivity unto Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

There is no force that can conquer sin except the force created within the will, mind and heart of man by the faithfulness, love, mercy and righteousness of God!

III.

THE FIFTH KINGDOM

It is of superhuman origin, does not owe its source to human plans/power

It begins small

It supplants all other kingdoms; provide man's real need

It will be eternal; neither arms nor persecution, philosophy, science nor ridicule will ever conquer it.

It grows great and prevails universally and will someday be the only government on a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness

THE LESSON OF DANIEL

A proud king reigned in Babylon the great;
A pure youth dreamed, to goodness consecrate.
The youth turned eyes to Heaven, with a prayer;
The king appraised his wealth and kingdom fair.
But God disdained the kingdomit was gone;
The humble youth prayed earnestly at dawn.
No lions-' den nor furnace breathing fire
Can frighten him whom Godly thoughts inspire.
The tyrant's taunts are as the winter grim
Whose insults pass as God's bright spring comes in.
The hosts of error, clad in stern array,
Inflame the world, then glumly fade away.
Proud kings and mighty kingdoms suffer loss;
Love lives!through Godly visions and a Cross.

Thomas Curtis Clark

EXAMINATION TWO

REFUTATIONS
(Answer the following by giving the argument which will correct the statement)

The magicians, enchanters, sorcerers and Chaldeans of Nebuchadnezzar's court were superstitious ignoramuses. Refute!

Daniel arrived at his interpretation of the king's dream from his education in Babylonian culture. Refute!

The ten toes of the great image represent 10 Roman emperors beginning with Pompey. Refute!

EXAMINATION TWO

ASSOCIATIONS
(Associate the persons or events of column one with the correct person or event of column two)

Belteshazzar
gold
Chaldean
Nebuchadnezzar
silver
king's captain
Syrian language
bronze
Shadrach
iron-clay
stone

angel
arioch
Daniel
Abed-nego
empire of Babylon
Hananiah
Persia
wise-man
Ahaz
king of Babylon
Greece
magician
Rome
beast
kingdom of God
Aramaic

MEMORIZATIONS
(Fill in the blanks:)

And in the days of ____shall the God of heaven set up a _______ that shall never be _______, nor shall the _ thereof be left to another people; but it shall ______ in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand ______.

EXPLANATIONS

Explain why Nebuchadnezzar was troubled in his spirit by the dream of the great image.

Explain the significance of Daniel's statement that God changeth the times and the seasons. removeth kings, and setteth up kings.

Explain the reason for depicting four great world empires as one image.

Explain the significance of the stone dashing the image to pieces.

Explain the relevance of this dream and its interpretation for 20th century Christians.

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