End of Daniel, chapter 2 please.
Book of Daniel, and we're at the second
chapter, and it's the chapter where we have
this great dream that Nebuchadnezzar, the king of
Babylon, dreams.
I think that nobody ever dreamed before like
this and I'm perfectly sure that nobody has
ever had a dream like this since.
This dream brought before him this great image,
the image of a man, and this image
measures for us the whole course of gentile
supremacy.
The whole course of gentile supremacy is revealed
through this image.
From its inception, when Babylon became the first
gentile world empire, from its inception to its
destruction, when the stone cut out without hands
smashes this image to pieces.
It's a wonderful chapter.
It's one of the greatest, of course, in
the word of God.
I think that most of us know that
when Paul was talking in the letters of
the Corinthians, he said that we should give
no offense to the Jew, or the gentile,
or the church of God.
And this little verse gives us the divisions
that God makes at this particular time, in
this particular dispensation, among the world's multitudes.
God sees the Jewish nation, God sees the
gentiles, and God sees the saved out of
both Jew and gentile in the church of
Jesus Christ.
God's not looking at the multitudes of the
world as black or white, not looking at
them as protestant or catholic.
God's not worried about colors, orange or purple
or green or white.
God has divided the peoples of the world
at this very time into these three divisions,
Jew, gentile, the church of Jesus Christ.
These are the divisions that God makes.
And I think that all of you know
this, from the day that he called Abraham
unto her of the Chaldees, the way back
there in Genesis 12, and said, if you
leave your country, your kindred, I will make
of thee a great nation.
Then God took up this nation, and God
worked through this nation, God worked for this
nation, God worked with this nation.
But there came a time when God cast
this nation aside, not finally, but for a
time.
They're not cast off forever.
But the day that God cast them off,
he took up the gentiles, and Nebuchadnezzar, who
was then the king of the Babylonians, under
God and allowed by God, became the first
world gentile power on this earth.
He ruled the then known world.
That was the beginning of the times of
the gentiles.
And the whole course of the times of
the gentiles is seen in this dream, in
this image, in this man that Nebuchadnezzar met
in his dream.
Right from the inception of gentile supremacy, to
the destruction of gentile power, when the stone
comes and crushes this image.
And so we're going to look at this
very carefully this evening.
I want to deal with the whole chapter
tonight, and there are 49 verses.
That's quite a long piece for us to
take off.
And I've got 10 headings for you, and
that makes 10 little sections that we want
to look at personally.
And if I take five minutes for each
section, that's 50 minutes, and then we might
have to play overtime 15 minutes each way,
I think, because we're not in a hurry.
There's nowhere to go now.
I should have said thank you to you
all turning up at the meeting tonight.
You should see the big heavy ones coming
in, all panting, you know.
It just reminded me of the text that
all things work together for good.
It'll do some of you good, you know,
having to walk a bit.
You're not used to walking.
But I do thank you for coming.
What we're doing, we're going to look very
carefully at this whole great chapter.
And then next Tuesday, if the Lord will,
we're going to take the time of looking
at the 10 toes alone.
Because this great image that we look at
tonight, when you start with the head and
come to the breast and the thighs and
the legs and the feet, you know the
10 toes, this is the final projection of
this man.
This is the final projection.
And we want to look very carefully at
this final projection.
Of course, 10 toes, it's a sort of
mutual federation, isn't it?
Yes, that's exactly what it is.
And yet while this is the final projection
of this image, and this is the mutual
federation, it's an unnatural unity because these toes
are made of iron and clay and that
is unnatural.
You cannot get that moulded together properly.
Is it possible that we're just seeing the
10 toes being formed now in our day?
Is this great European economic community that Heath
is really voting for and going all august?
Is this the formation of these 10 toes?
Have we come almost to the end of
gentile supremacy?
Is the Lord going to come back and
smash it soon?
We've got a lot of things to pay
attention to here.
But the only way we can do it
is take the whole chapter as it comes
this evening and then take an hour and
a half next Tuesday up the 10 toes
alone.
And I think we'll do it properly then.
Let's have a look at the king's agitation
with a Daniel 2 verse 1.
And in the second year of the reign
of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams wherewith his spirit
was troubled.
And as sleep broke from him, then the
king commanded to call the magicians and the
astrologers and the sorcerers and the Chaldeans, for
to show the king his dreams.
So they came and stood before the king
and the king said unto them, I have
dreamed a dream.
And my spirit was troubled for not a
dream.
I'm sure that there must be people here
who have dreamed dreams at times.
There must be one or two beautiful dreamers
in the meeting.
And I can tell you this, that if
you take cheese and onions as you go
to bed about twelve, you'll most surely dream
the most fantastic things you've ever seen.
You know, I was told the other day
about a gentleman who was feeding like this
at twelve o'clock and went to bed
and then he dreamed that he was on
his way to the North Pole.
And he had big fur coats on him
and all the rest of it.
But some of the party were dropping out
with the cold and at last he was
left alone with a sleigh and the dogs.
And then one by one the dogs said,
he's almost at the North Pole and he's
not going to make it.
So he threw everything out of the sleigh
and got down into the middle of it
and covered them over and pulled the sheet
over and said, well I'll just die in
the darkness.
He felt his feet terribly cold.
They were sticking to the sleigh when all
of a sudden the top came off and
a voice said, what in the name of
the world are you doing here?
Well I assure you that this dream was
not anything like that.
This dream was a God-given vision.
This is something that God wanted to do.
And the God of heaven gave Nebuchadnezzar in
the night season this particular vision.
Yes he remembered dreaming but then it went
from him and his spirit was troubled, it
was agitated.
Now let's go quickly from the agitation and
leading at verse four.
Then speak the Chaldeans to the king and
Ciri.
O king, live forever.
Tell thy servants the dream and we will
show the interpretation.
The king answered and said to the Chaldeans,
the thing is gone from me.
If ye will not make known unto me
the dream with the interpretation thereof, ye shall
be cut in pieces and your houses shall
be made at Dunhill.
But if ye show the dream and the
interpretation thereof, ye shall receive of me gifts
and rewards and great honor.
Therefore show me the dream and the interpretation
thereof.
They answered again and said, let the king
tell his servants the dream and we will
show the interpretation of it.
The king answered and said, I know of
certainty that ye would gain the time because
you see the thing is gone from me.
But if you will not make known unto
me the dream there is but one decree
for you.
For ye have prepared lying and corrupt words
to speak before me till the time be
changed.
Therefore tell me the dream and I shall
know that ye can show me the interpretation
thereof.
The Chaldeans answered before the king and said,
there is not a man upon the earth
that can show the king's matter.
These were the wise men, you know.
But you know sometimes wise men of this
world, even those who have got degrees that
bring them into the king's palace as wise
men, sometimes professing themselves to be wise, they
become fools.
They're saying there is not a man upon
the earth.
At that moment there was a man in
the palace.
There is not a man upon the earth
that can show the king's matter.
Therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler
that asks such things of any magician or
astrologer or Chaldean.
And it is a rare thing that the
king requires, and there is none other that
can show it before the king except the
gods whose dwelling is not the flesh.
For this cause the king was angry and
very furious and commanded to destroy all the
wise men of Babylon.
And the decree went forth that the wise
men should be slain.
And they thought Daniel and his fellows to
be slain.
And just getting over that long stretch quickly,
you can see the judgment that came from
this fierce king, because Nebuchadnezzar was a fierce
and cruel man.
You remember how he had taken Zedekiah's sons
and he had slain them before Zedekiah's eyes,
and then he had taken Zedekiah's eyes out.
He was a cruel man.
And this is the condemnation that's lying on
the head of the wise men of Babylon.
And then we come to this supplication of
Daniel's.
See verse 14?
Then Daniel answered with counsel and wisdom to
Ariok, the captain of the king's guards, which
was gone forth to slay the wise men
of Babylon.
He answered and said to Ariok, the king's
captain, why is the decree so hasty from
the king?
Then Ariok made the thing known to Daniel.
And Daniel went in and desired of the
king that he would give him time, and
that he would show the king the interpretation.
I think that was very wonderful, very courageous
indeed, that Daniel should go in again before
this furious king.
This is the thing that the king was
yelping about so much that men were trying
to get time.
But Daniel put it another way round for
him.
He said, you just give me time and
I'll tell you.
He wasn't beating about the bush or anything
like that, he said, I'll tell you.
It's faith, you know.
And it says here, verse 17.
Then Daniel went to his house and made
the thing known to Hananiah, Michiel and Azariah,
his companions, you remember we read about them
last week, that they would desire mercies of
the God of heaven concerning the sheep.
You know, he got together all the folks
he knew that knew the Lord, and they
were to desire mercies of the God of
heaven.
I like the way Daniel goes about things,
you know.
Some people gather for prayer and you would
think it was just an honor for God
to bless them.
Somehow they think that the way they form
the sentences and the emotion they put into
it, that their prayers become a sort of
sacrifice to move God, and that's baloney.
That's what that is.
Yes.
Sometimes I see up in prayer meetings and
I know they mean it well enough.
Prayer changes things.
No, it doesn't.
God changes things in answer to prayer.
You think that just a few words does
it, you've got the wrong end of the
stick.
Oh, I believe God does things in answer
to prayer.
That's what I believe.
My faith is in God.
Some people's faith is in vain repetition.
That's what the heathen do.
You know, when the Lord was talking to
us about prayer in Matthew chapter 6, he
said, and when thou prayest, be not like
the hypocrites that love to stand at the
corner of the streets and make long prayers
to be seen of men.
Possible to come to the prayer meeting and
only be man-conscious.
Ah, you're only wasting our time, that's what
you're doing.
You'd be better at home.
And then the Lord said, thou when thou
prayest, be not as the heathen are who
used to depend on vain repetition.
You see, sometimes people are just man-conscious
in the prayer meeting and sometimes they're just
word-conscious.
I guess you hear these old phrases for
so long, if they didn't come you could
say their prayers for them.
Because they read up about the people that
have a prayer book.
Will you pray at all?
That's the thing we want to get round
to.
And thou prayest, enter into thy closet, shut
the door and pray to God.
We shouldn't be man-conscious, we're not looking
for hallelujahs in the prayer meeting.
And we shouldn't be through word-conscious.
We need to be God-conscious, all that
we could get back to God.
And I wish I could arouse all the
true believers for this weekend.
Because I think that we need mercy from
God at the weekend in this country of
ours.
And we're all responsible here, you know.
I can tell you if this blood bath
begins, and it may well begin, don't let's
screw ourselves.
There's a great number of people in this
land who are fed up with the rebels.
They're tired of it.
This little town here has had about enough
of it.
And they're tired, you know, people are tired.
And there are men who are ready to
march on the street with guns.
And they'll walk into Roman Catholic quarters and
they'll be murdered.
Well indeed.
And blood will flow freely.
And innocent Roman Catholics and innocent Protestants will
be murdered.
We are on the verge of it.
Don't fool yourself.
I pray every day that God will give
us mercy in this thing.
And that some of these agents that have
been carrying on will break down and get
on their knees and let's get a bit
of peace.
Yes, we would all need to pray the
God of heaven for mercy.
Man, do we haven't anything to commend us
to God?
I don't think the Unionists are guiltless, you
know.
Not a bit of me.
I think I fooled around for 30 years
and walked over everybody.
And I hadn't got the guts to stand
up to Westminster when the time came.
Oh yes, I don't want to get into
politics because it doesn't suit me at all.
There's a terrible lot inside that I would
love to say sometimes.
I think we believers need to pray.
Daniel aroused these pals of his.
They were in Babylon.
I suppose the Babylonians never thought they would
have a prayer meeting down there.
Well, they had a prayer meeting in Babel.
Yes, this is supplication, isn't it?
And he said this.
Daniel aroused them, verse 18, that they would
desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning
this matter, that Daniel and his fellows should
not perish with the rest of the wise
men of Babylon.
Then, if that might, you know, then was
the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night
vision.
That's how it comes, you know, just like
a revelation.
I really believe, you know, that the believers,
if they were in touch with God in
this land at this moment, hold the key
to many things.
I would be a far more powerful character
for this country on my knees along with
God than I would be fooling around on
the TV.
I think it's my place, and I think
it's yours too.
But some of us don't find that easy
to do.
And I believe that this country is going
to be saved.
It'll be prayer that will save us, not
God.
God heard and answered, didn't he?
Then, oh, it comes like a crash, doesn't
it?
It's the psychological moment, then, just like that.
Oh, I tell you, friends, God hears, and
God answers prayer.
Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel.
And I like this bit, you know, then,
that's another then, then Daniel blessed the God
of heaven.
I think when God hears and answers prayer,
we should not forget to thank God.
Sometimes we take too much for granted, don't
we?
Many a man, having got the answer to
the king's query, would have run over the
house and down the street and up the
avenue to the palace.
Oh, Daniel took a minute or two just
to thank God.
And what a picture he paints of God
here.
You should take it sometime and preach from
it, you young preachers.
Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name
of God forever and ever.
What a wonderful name God has.
Blessed be his name.
And then God, Daniel said, Blessed be the
name of God forever and ever, for wisdom
and might are his.
He's got wisdom, he's got, well, all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge belong to him.
This whole book says his understanding is infinite.
Well, if he's God, he knows everything.
But he's not only got a wonderful name,
and not only has he wisdom, not only
has he might, but he said he is,
and he changes the times and the seasons.
Oh, what authority he has.
He's the sovereign God.
Oh, that we could get a hold of
this.
He changes the times and the seasons.
He removes us kings and sets us up
kings.
Yes, he's the Lord of all.
I think we should get our eyes on
God, on his name, on his wisdom, on
his might, on his power, and on his
authority.
He gives us wisdom unto the wise, and
knowledge to them that know understanding.
He reveals the deep and secret things.
He knows what is in the darkness, and
the light dwelleth within.
You know, what a picture he has painted
of God, if we could take the time.
And then he looked into God's face, and
he said, I thank thee, and praise thee,
O thou God of my fathers, who hast
given me wisdom and might, and hast made
known unto me now what we desired of
thee.
For thou hast now made known unto us
the king's matter.
You know, I'd like you to think about
this twenty-third verse.
You know, thanksgiving was in his heart.
That's a great thing, you know.
We should always thank the Lord.
But not only is thanksgiving in his heart,
you know, humility is in his mind.
Who hast given me wisdom and might, and
hast made known unto me.
You know, he's not taken any glory for
himself.
He says, this is all you're doing, you
know, I've nothing to do with it, I
only got down on my knees and you
told me.
And you can see the wisdom, the thanksgiving
that's in his heart, and you can see
the humility in his mind.
But I want you to watch how it
changes things.
He says, I thank thee, and praise thee,
O thou God of my fathers, who hast
given me wisdom and might, and hast made
known unto me now what we desired of
thee.
You know, he recognized the other fellows were
at the prayer meeting.
And he went for them, he said, for
thou hast now made known unto us.
I think he's a great character because you
can see the thanksgiving in his heart, and
you can see the humility in his mind,
and you can see the recognition of others
in his soul.
I think this is all adoration, you know.
So we're sweeping through the chapter, we looked
at the agitation, and then the condemnation, and
the supplication, and this is, and then the
revelation, and this is adoration.
And I like this bit, you know, in
this twenty-fourth verse, Therefore Daniel went in
unto Ariok, whom the king had ordained to
destroy the wise men of Babylon.
He went in and said thus unto him,
Destroy not the wise men of Babylon.
I'm perfectly sure that these magicians and astrologers,
all these called things, were these Babylonian mysteries.
And if they were not Daniel's friends, I'm
positively sure of that.
I think, you know, they would have put
him out of action if they could.
But you know, this man who's got thanksgiving
in his heart, this man who has humility
in his mind, this man who's got the
recognition of others in his soul, this man
has a concern for the perishing.
And that would do a lot of us
a lot of good if we could just
grow up like that.
If we could just start to thank God
a little bit.
You know, we've had a lot of people
saved here in this place, and across the
world.
I wouldn't think in bomb-stained Lurgan tonight
that we've got hundreds of people sitting around
the Bible who wouldn't believe it, you know.
And we've had people saved Sunday by Sunday,
right down through this year and many other
years.
We've got a wee man, he's over there,
there he is in there, bald head, see
him hiding behind the woman in the pink
coat on there.
And he prays in our prayer, mixing, Lord,
we thank thee for thy doings, it's not
the past as Lord, and I always say,
Amen!
Why these boys grew up round here to
realise if anything's done, it's the Lord's doing.
This is the Lord's doing.
And we should thank the Lord all the
time, and we should be humble enough to
know we don't need to be patted on
the back, and we should recognise others who
are doing certain things in the work too.
And we should have a concern in our
soul all the time for the passion.
They said it to Daniel, and you could
see that the fellow could preach from Daniel
himself, that we must linger there.
That's solicitation, he doesn't want them destroyed.
And when they're twenty-five, then Ariok brought
in Daniel before the king in haste, and
said thus unto him, I have found a
man of the captives of Judah that will
make known unto the king the interpretation.
The king answered and said to Daniel, whose
name was Belteshazzar, that's the name the Babylonians
gave him when they tried to brainwash him,
art thou able to make known unto me
the dream which I have seen and the
interpretation thereof?
Remember he's in the palace, and he's before
the king, and the king's not out for
any nonsense.
And the king says, art thou able to
make known unto me the dream which I
have seen the interpretation thereof?
Daniel starts off very wonderfully, I think.
Daniel answered in the presence of the king
and said, the secret which the king hath
demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the
magicians, the soothsayers, show unto the king?
You know, he's not trying to belittle anybody,
he's just trying to show the king the
misery of his magicians.
I think he's got a right to do
that, you know.
Prophets and preachers have certain rights.
Sometimes when I'm at conference meetings where they
ask questions, and some silly fool asks silly
questions, I really take him to court, you
know.
I'm told in this book to avoid foolish
questions, unlearned and foolish questions.
And so Daniel's just letting the king know
the misery of these magicians.
And then he went a little bit further.
He says, but there is a God in
heaven.
I think that was big of Daniel.
You know, he's in this Babylonian court, and
they've got all kinds of images around him.
They've got gods that they fall down and
worship, the sun god, the fire god, and
so on.
And Daniel just wants to tell this old
king that there's a real God in heaven.
It's the man to do this sort of
job, you know.
I wasn't rushing it.
He didn't need to rush it.
They've got to wait for the answer anyway.
So he talks, first of all, about the
misery of his magicians, and then he talks
about the greatness of his gods.
There's a God in heaven that reveals secrets,
and makes us known to the king that
you can measure what shall be, and get
this phrase please, in the latter days.
Oh, I wish you would get a hold
of that, because all the things of importance
in his vision just wasn't for that day,
for the latter days.
God's trying to tell you what will take
place in the latter days.
Thy dream and the visions of thy head
upon my bed are these.
As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came
into thy mind upon my bed.
What should come to pass hereafter?
You see, Daniel, first of all, let the
king see the misery of his magicians.
Then he let the king see the greatness
of his gods.
And then he let the king see the
reason for this particular revelation.
And then I like this bit, very pretty.
He says, but ask for me.
This secret is not revealed to me for
any wisdom that I have more than any
living.
You know, I love the man for that.
He just showing the king the poverty of
the prophets.
Oh, I'm the teacher at this class, I
know.
And I've been teaching this class coming up
on twenty years now, every Tuesday.
And we've had these people here with their
Bibles.
But I don't want you to think that
I'm anything special, because I'm just one of
you.
I'm just a common five-eight.
Only God, in his wonderful grace, has given
me the gift of picture.
Now why he would give it to a
fellow like me, I wouldn't know.
But I just happen to know that that's
why the class continues.
It's because of God's grace and God's gift.
It isn't that I'm different from anybody.
I suppose if we were put into a
class and I had to do some of
the sums or grammar or anything else, well
I would be away at the back of
the class.
But then that's not how God works, you
see.
Gift is different from academic standard.
And I wish some of you academics would
learn that.
Because it would do you a power of
good.
A fellow said to me once, oh we
cannot send our girl to the mission field.
She doesn't know how to speak.
She's never been to school.
She's no scholarship at all.
Threw my Bible at him.
I said, find me the schooling of Peter
and James and John.
And when you've got that going, I'll dig
you John the Baptist and two or three
more that were aired in the wilderness.
Ah baloney, we're fed up listening to this.
This is chop-chop.
That's not how God works.
God takes whoever he likes and gifts them.
And that's it.
You can do what you like about it.
You can't do the job and that's all
there is about it.
And I don't have any ideas about me.
I just know it's all of God.
I've got that into my hide long ago.
Yes, Daniel was a character just like this,
you know.
He says, but as for me this secret
is not revealed to me for any wisdom
that I have more than any living, but
for their fakes that shall make known the
interpretation to the king and that thou mightest
know the thoughts of thy heart.
I think he's explaining here just the whole
thing.
So we've got our way through 30 of
the verses.
Just reading the book, that's all we're doing
now.
But we're coming to the more detailed part
and we must take time now, because we've
come to the publication of the thing.
Now verse 31, and watch your bible now
very carefully.
Daniel speaking to the king.
Thou, O king, sawst and behold a great
image.
This great image, whose brightness was excellent stood
before thee, and the form thereof was terrible.
The image's head was of fine gold, and
just try to get that into your mind.
The head was of fine gold.
Notice the word his breast and his arms
of silver, his belly and his thighs of
brass.
The image was the image of a man.
That's what the word his just tells you.
Now the king was dreaming and he saw
a man, rather peculiar kind of man, because
the head of this man that he saw
in the dream, it was made of fine
gold, and his breast and his arms of
silver, his belly and his thighs of brass.
And that makes me think, you know, I
think the image had its arms folded, because
he could see the breast and the arms
of silver.
And of course he could see the belly
and the thighs of brass, nothing hiding anything.
I just wanted to get the thing properly.
You can see the head of gold, the
breast and the arms of silver, and the
belly and the thighs of brass.
And then you notice very pretty, see his
legs of iron, then his feet part of
iron, and part of clay.
Now this man, or this image, was standing
before the king in this dream.
But that wasn't the end of the dream.
Verse thirty-four, Thy thoughts tell that a
stone was cut out without hands.
That's very important, you know, that the king
should get that idea in the dream, that
this stone that came was cut out without
hands, which smote the image upon his feet,
and it didn't smite them upon the head,
remember.
It just smote them upon the feet that
were of iron and clay, and broke them
to pieces.
Then was the iron, the clay, the brass,
the silver, the gold, broken to pieces together,
and became like the chaff of the summer
threshing floors, and the wind carried them away,
and no place was found for them.
And the stone that smote the image became
a great mountain, and filled, get it now,
the whole earth, and a wee bit of
it, a whole earth.
Well, that's the dream.
You got it into your mind?
Can you see the head of gold?
Can you see the breast and the arms
of silver?
Can you see the belly and the thighs
of brass?
Can you see the legs of iron?
Can you see the feet, part of iron,
part of clay?
Can you see the stone coming quickly, and
smashing this image to pieces by striking its
feet?
Can you get all that?
Yes, it's a funny dream.
No wonder the king was confused.
But you see, God was making this thing
doubly true to the king, because he not
only gave him the vision, but then he
blotted it out of his mind.
But the moment that the prophet would come,
and tell him the whole thing over again,
like he's done just here and now, then
of course the king would know that this
was God, that God was really speaking to
him.
And of course the whole thing came back
in all its class.
And so this is Daniel explaining the thing.
This is the publication of the dream.
Now we come to the bit that's most
important, this is the interpretation.
That's why I said to him, I said,
we'd have to take it that by this
he's going to do anything with it at
all.
Now, if you watch, you can't get muddled
in the interpretation, there's no trouble about it
at all.
Daniel is still speaking and he's saying this
to the king in verse 36.
This is the dream.
And we will tell the interpretation thereof before
the king.
Thou, O king, art a king of kings.
For the God of heaven hath given me
a kingdom, power and strength and glory.
And no doubt at all, the God of
heaven gave this supremacy into the hands of
Ned you could never.
He was kicking off the Gentiles just now.
And this kingdom is so great that wheresoever
the children of men dwell, the beasts of
the field and the fowls of the heaven
hath he given into thine hand, and hath
made thee ruler over them all.
Thou art this head of gold.
You couldn't miss that, could you?
This head of gold is the Babylonish empire,
world empire.
This was the first great Gentile world empire.
And here it is.
Thou art this head of gold.
This is an empire and this is its
king.
Now, he went on with the interpretation, verse
39, and asked of thee shall arise another
kingdom inferior to thee.
You see, it is kingdoms that we're talking
about.
Because you noticed when you were looking at
the image that the metals used, each one
as we went down the man became inferior
to the one above it.
The head of gold, and then the breast
and arms of silver, and then the belly
and thighs of brass, and the legs of
iron, and the feet part of iron and
part of clay.
You can see how it deteriorates as we
go down the image.
Now, the second Gentile world kingdom was to
be inferior to the first.
And the first one was Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonish kingdom.
Now, what was the second Gentile world kingdom?
How do we do that?
It's very simple.
You see chapter three, see the first word,
Nebuchadnezzar, the king, he's still living there.
See chapter four, Nebuchadnezzar, the king, and he's
speaking unto all people and nations and languages
that dwell on the face of the earth.
You see, he's the boss.
Well, he's still the king there.
Well, when you come to chapter five, it's
his son that's reigning now.
It's Belshazzar of the king.
Remember how he made a feast for a
thousand lords.
See verse two, Belshazzar, while he tasted the
wine, commanded to bring the gold and silver
vessels which his father, Nebuchadnezzar, had taken out
of the temple which was in Jerusalem.
Now, his son is on the throne now.
And he's thrown out his wheat a bit.
He wants to insult the gods of Israel.
It is my father wrecked their temple once
and brought the gold and silver vessels out.
Let's bring them in and drink out of
them.
Because what this fellow's going to do is,
he's going to mock God.
Ah, well, you're not allowed to mock God.
And so, just at that moment, there came
the fingers of a man's hand on the
wall.
And you know there was writing on the
wall.
You remember it?
It's the verse twenty-five of chapter five.
This is the writing.
Mene, mene, tekel, you fasten.
And Daniel came to interpret the writing.
Mene, meant, God hath numbered thy kingdom and
finished it.
The Balaamish kingdom was about to end.
And it says in verse thirty, In that
night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans
slain, and Darius the Median took the kingdom.
Of course, the historians in this meeting, and
there are some historians from Queen's University here,
and they know better than I do that
when you trace the Gentile supremacy in this
world, it began with the Babylonian Empire, and
then, of course, Medo-Persia was the next
great world empire.
And so, it was Darius the Median that
came in and took over the kingdom.
Of course, it was inferior a little bit
to Babylon.
It was the breast and arms of silver.
It was an inferior kingdom, but it was
the one kingdom, just the same.
So, let's get back again to Daniel 2.
And then at verse thirty-nine, And after
thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee,
and another third kingdom of brass, which shall
bear rule over all the earth.
Of course, you can see that these are
world rulers.
It's Gentile supremacy.
It's the world Gentile empire.
Now, for the young students around here, are
you listening?
This is your bit.
When you come to the last word in
Malachi, last dot, last word, Old Testament finish,
Medo-Persia is reigning supreme over the whole
Gentile world.
You got that?
Now, between your last word in Malachi and
your first word in Matthew's Gospel, how many
years are in there?
That's the thing sometimes you young people miss.
Well, let me tell you between the last
dot in Malachi and the first word in
Matthew, there are four hundred years.
Sometimes it's called by scholars four hundred silent
years.
You see, Malachi was one of the prophets,
but he was not the last of the
prophets.
He's the last of the minor prophets, and
he's the last prophet in the Old Testament,
but he is not the last of the
Old Testament prophets.
Have you got all that?
John the Baptist was the last of the
Old Testament prophets, but he appears in the
New Testament.
But he was one of the Old Testament
prophets.
Yes, and between Malachi speaking and John the
Baptist speaking, God had been silent for four
hundred years.
God had said nothing to the nation.
He fed up with the nation, and the
Gentiles were ruling.
I think that every historian in this place
knows this, that Babylon was the first world
empire, Medo-Persia was the second, and in
between the two testaments, Medo-Persia was overthrown
by Alexander the Great, and the Grecian empire
came into being.
And that's the third one.
That's the brass one.
Now, it's very interesting that when you open
your New Testament, it's neither Medo-Persia nor
Greece.
It's Rome that's in power when your New
Testament opens.
Have a look to just make sure of
that now.
We're at Luke's Gospel, and we're at chapter
two.
Luke's Gospel, chapter two, verse
one.
Luke's Gospel to verse one.
And it came to pass in those days
that there went out a decree from Caesar
Augustus that all the world should be taken.
What's he talking about now?
Ah, he's the boss.
Do you know who Caesar Augustus was?
Well, he was the Roman emperor.
That's who he was, because Rome is ruling
the world.
And that's the fourth kingdom, you know.
Let's go back again just to Daniel 2.
You get this proper.
Daniel 2, and we're a way down at
verse 39.
And after thee, that is after Babylon, shall
arise another kingdom inferior to thee, Medo-Persia,
and another third kingdom of wrath, Greece, which
shall bear over all the earth.
Alexander conquered the world and cried because there
were no more worlds to conquer.
And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong
as iron, for as much as iron breaketh
in pieces and subdueth all things, and as
iron that breaketh all these shall it break
in pieces and bruise.
And so here is this iron kingdom.
And you know, if you follow this image
that God gives, there are only four great
world empires.
Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.
Let me say this, that no other world,
no other gentile power can become a world
power.
Those of you who know history know quite
well that the Turks made a great bid
to rule the world.
Didn't come off.
Those of you just a wee bit older
remember the time when Napoleon made a great
bid to rule the world, and nearly did
it.
Only for Wellington at Waterloo.
And some of us remember well the 1914
war when the Kaiser thought that he could
just take the world over.
And of course, most of you know something
about Hitler.
And let me say this, he came nearer
to it than anybody else that ever lived.
You know, I was giving lectures at a
certain place on the day that Hitler and
his great panzer army walked into Paris.
And he defeated the French.
And they had to surrender and sign the
surrender.
Out in an old railway carriage.
It was the same railway carriage that the
Germans had to sign the surrender in, in
the 1914 war, 1914-18 war.
And just to humble them, he took the
great French generals out to the same railway
carriage and made them sign the surrender.
You think you hear the French now that
they were the whole cheese.
Remember they surrendered.
And let them just know this once and
for all, if it had not been for
Britain they would be under German domination tonight.
And they're still, they're waiting about all the
time and you can hardly put up with
them.
They got a real hiding.
Oh, I know that our men were chased
home at Dunkirk, I know all about that.
But the day that Hitler walked into Paris,
that day I was given a lecture to
hundreds in a certain little spot.
And I took up the subject, why Hitler
cannot win this war.
And didn't I look a real mug.
There's nobody in the meeting believe this, only
me.
Yes, it was a very great day, I'm
glad I did it.
You know, old fella sat and looked at
a young fellow, young fella then, sat and
looked at me, you know, think he's off
the knopper.
Well, I knew from this book that Hitler
couldn't win the war.
And I know from this book tonight that
the Russians cannot govern this world either.
I know that.
You see, God gave the whole course of
gentile supremacy from the head to the feet.
God was mopping up the course.
There's only the four, there's no more.
The way the old farmer used to pray
at night, Lord bless me and her and
John and his wife, what's four and no
more.
All right, now we've got this settled that
there are four worlds gentile powers here.
And we've seen them all, you know.
I want you to get this, the fourth
one, we're back at verse 40.
And the four kings shall be strong as
iron, for as much as iron breaketh and
pieces and subdueth all things, and as iron
that breaketh all these shall it break and
pieces and bruise.
And where are thou saw'st the feet?
And it very specially talks about the toes.
I want you to get that into your
mind, you know.
As if Daniel's eyes were going down this
image, looking up the head, looking up the
breast and arms, looking up the belly and
thighs, looking up the legs, looking up the
feet.
Last of all the toes, ten toes.
You see, that's the final projection of the
man.
It's the last bit we want to look
at.
That's the final projection.
And I think that the expositors and men
who write commentaries, maybe some of them a
hundred years back, you can't blame them, they
haven't seen all that we can see.
Tonight, you know, there are ten nations on
Europe about to be formed together.
Is this the final projection?
If this is the final projection, this was
a mighty vision that Daniel got.
We're going to pick up the toes next
week and just take a whole night at
the ten toes.
Wonder which one of the toes Britain will
be.
Certainly not the big toe, neither foot.
No.
Oh, the feet of one of the wee
ones.
He wouldn't like that.
He just doesn't know what he's pushing the
people into.
That's his problem.
You see, Britain used to have a commonwealth.
It was called an empire.
Oh, Queen of the Empire.
You know, it's nearly gone tonight.
And I think if they pushed the common
market enough, you know, maybe Australia and New
Zealand and Canada might have something to say.
And she might be left a very small
toe indeed.
I don't think that they realize what's happening.
But we'll not stop at ten toes of
their form.
No doubt at all about it.
You see, it's the fully fledged man.
Of course, when we go over to one
of the other chapters, we're going to see
ten horns.
Of course, we'll get it all wedded together
when we get the next chapters on Revelation
17 and a few more places.
We'll get all the tens in.
Maybe I'll be able to do a lot
of them next week.
The final projection, this mutual federation, this unnatural
unity, because this is an unnatural unity.
Ah, you know, they're not as united as
they would like to make it appear.
There's clay mixed with the iron here and
it's not sticking.
And they're all going to work a wee
bit out for themselves.
This is the big idea.
They're not just as united as you would
think.
But we'll not only look at the final
projection and the mutual federation and the unnatural
unity and the individual toes, but we'll look
at the total destruction.
Ah, there's a whole lot more headings I
have in the back of my head for
you next week, but we'll get round to
that, you know, because I mean to do
these ten toes properly.
But let's get this bit in this week,
verse 43.
Whereas thou sawst iron mixed with miry clay,
they shall mingle themselves with the seed of
men, but they shall not please one to
another.
I don't believe they'll please.
I think the French have ideas of their
own, and I'm positively sure the Germans have
ideas of their own.
They always had ideas.
And I don't think the Italians are far
behind them.
Yes, they're not cleaved properly, you know.
Of course these boys wouldn't learn out of
this book, would they?
No, he should know more about playing a
piano.
Somebody should buy him a book for Christmas.
Look at this.
And in the days of these kings, let's
get that bit in.
Of these ten toes, or kings, or kingdoms
if you like.
And in the days of these kings shall
the God of heaven set up a kingdom.
God's going to do something too, which shall
never be destroyed.
It's going to be an everlasting kingdom, isn't
it?
Verse 45.
For as much as thou sawst that the
stone was cut out of the mountain without
hands.
Who is this stone now?
Would the Lord Jesus have recalled the stone?
Yes, he was.
Ah, it was good old Peter standing up
before the Sanhedrin said, this is the stone
that the builders rejected.
Lord Jesus is the stone right through this
book, you know.
The Lord Jesus is going to come back.
Oh, I know he's coming first to the
air to take his people home, maybe before
the weekend, and do what the like with
us after that.
We might be going home, you know.
I still believe tonight that there is one
of three answers for Ulster.
It's either revival, or reprisal, or removal.
We might go tonight.
Sometimes I just linger on before I pull
the clothes off and say, even so, calm
Lord Jesus.
I would square that, wouldn't I?
I would fix it.
Make no mistakes, we're on the verge of
that.
Because if these ten pearls are forming, and
our Lord's to come for the church first,
and there's seven years between that and his
coming to smash the post, we must be
terribly near the first stone.
You see, seven years later he's coming to
smash these stones.
And when we see the stones forming now,
and no doubt they're forming, we haven't too
long to go.
And he's the stone that will come back.
Isn't this a mighty chapter?
What a Bible we have.
You know, when Daniel did all this of
his chest, the old king knew right well
he had told the truth.
Hebrews 46.
Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face
and worshipped Daniel.
Daniel shouldn't have allowed him to do that.
And commanded that they should offer an oblation
and sweet orders unto him.
And I'm sure Daniel rejected this.
The king answered unto Daniel and said, Of
a truth it is that your God is
the God of gods, and the Lord of
kings, and a revealer of secrets, saying, Thou
couldst reveal a secret.
Then the king made Daniel a great man,
and gave him many great gifts, and made
him ruler over the whole province of Babylon,
and the chief of the governors over all
the wise men of Babylon.
Here's something that shows you the calibre of
Daniel.
Then Daniel requested of the king that he
sent Sadduk, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs
of Babylon.
You know, Daniel was a great character.
There was thanksgiving in his heart up there
to the God of heaven, and there was
humility in his mind, and there was recognition
of the men that prayed, and there was
concern for the souls of men.
And here he never forgets his friends.
Now we're all set now.
That's the thought of introduction for next week.
See you around the ten toes next Tuesday.