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Study in this short series on the book of Daniel. And tonight we are to study together in his famous chapter two, one perhaps of the best known chapters in the whole of the prophecy of Daniel. It concerns the vision that God gave to His Imperial Highness, the emperor himself, Meduchadneva. And in that dream and vision, God outlined prophetically to Nebuchadnezzar what the course of Gentile government would be from Nebuchadnezzar's time onward, until the coming of the great kingdom of God that should destroy and put aside all human government and institute instead the worldwide government of God the Son.
The vision that was given to Daniel was given, as you may already know, in the form of a great image of a man made of different metals from its head down. That image representing the succession of Gentile empires. Not all the empires that has ever been from the foundation of the world upward. For long before Nebuchadnezzar revived the Babylonian Empire, there had been very large empires, that of Egypt, that of earlier Babylon in its earlier phases, and then, of course, the great, perhaps the greatest of the two of the world empires, of Syria itself. Nebuchadnezzar now led the renewed, revised Babylonian Empire.
He was the rebuilder and the beautifier of Babylon City. And therefore, this great image, with its different metals, was, uh, designed to represent the course of the major world empires among Gentiles, from Nebuchadnezzar's time onwards, until what we should call the second coming of Christ. Now, normally, we shall not be reading the passage here in public at the beginning of our studies, because, as I explained last night, the time will be short, and to spare time, I'm going to assume that you've been able to read the passage in advance. If you want to know what passages they are, we shall be studying each night.
You have been issued, I'm sure, with a series of notes here. If you haven't, stick up your hand, and somebody will swiftly come to your aid with angelic, uh, uh, uh, service, do they? Uh, you are welcome to take away this sheet of notes. Here's hoping you will, and that you will find things of interest in them to study yourselves and try and work out their implications in your own personal studies. However, if you take one away, do be so kind as to bring it with you whenever you next attend, because while we should not be referring to the notes every night, some nights it will be more than usually helpful to have a copy of the notes in your hand so that you can follow what is being said about the contents and subject matter of the book.
But tonight we are to make an exception. We are to read a passage from Daniel to start with, because at the beginning of the story in chapter two, there comes a point when the translation is very important, crucially important, and we need to make sure that we have the correct in a translation of the verse. So let's begin to read in Daniel chapter two and verse one. In the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, and his spirit was troubled and his sleep break from. Then the king commanded to call the magicians and the enchanters and the sorcerers and the Chaldeans for to tell the king his dreams.
So they came in and stood before the king. And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit is troubled to know the dream. Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in the Syrian language, O king, live forever. Tell thy servants the dream, and we will show thee the interpretation." The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, and it's just here that the question of translation becomes crucially important. If you have an older translation with you, it probably says something like, the thing is gone from me, or words to that effect. And reading that, you might get the impression that what Nebuchadnezzar was saying was this, gentlemen, I had a dream last night, but I've quite forgotten what the dream was.
Unfortunately, the thing is gone from me. Please, will you tell me what I dreamed last night, and then in your kindness, add the interpretation. That is not, in fact, what Nebuchadnezzar said. He hadn't forgotten the dream, as we can presently see. He will knew very well what he had dreamed. What he was saying to the wise men was this: The word has gone forth from me, that is, I have announced my intention. This is what I have determined and decreed. I dreamed a dream, and my decree is now, and that's final, and nothing what you will say will ever overturn it or make me change my mind.
I'm telling you now what I demand from you. I demand not two things, but one thing. I demand, first of all, that you tell me what it was I dreamed. And secondly, then you can tell me what the interpretation of the dream should be. That is what he was saying. And as you see and read what follows, the reaction of the wise men, uh, that decree from the king upset them full sore, of course. And they ended up by telling him in diplomatic language that he was the biggest old fool that ever walked the face of the earth. Only, of course, they did it in nice, polite court language, you'll see, lest they upset him, for it was a dangerous thing to upset an immigrant never, you'll see, and we shall see.
But that is what he said, and uh, now let's read on for a few verses. The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, my decree has gone forth from me. If you make not known unto me the dream and the interpretation thereof, you shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made of dunghill. But if you show the dream and the interpretation thereof, you shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honor. Therefore, show me the dream and then the interpretation thereof. He answered the second time and said, let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation. And the king answered and said, I know of a certainty that you would gain time because you see the decree has been, uh, gone, uh, is given by me.
But if you make known, if you make not known unto me the dream, there is but one law for you, for you 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 you 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, for as much as no king, lord, nor ruler has asked any such a thing of any magician or enchanter 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 this place.
For this cause, the king was angry and very furious, and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon, and he would have done had not Daniel heard of the affair and taken the whole matter to God in prayer. And the story is how God revealed to Daniel what the king had dreamed the night before, so that he could go in and tell his majesty what he had dreamed. And the king, discovering that Daniel knew exactly what he had dreamed, was all the more confident, therefore, to accept the interpretation that Daniel gave of the dream, and was all the more certain in his heart that the dream was no accident, not a little bit of undigested cheese, like Scrooge thought of the ghost that came before him, you'll say, that it was a real dream given by God, conveying divine revelation.
One other thing we should notice at this stage in our study. The dream, as I have said, concerned a great image made of different metals that was going to indicate to Nebuchadnezzar the future of Gentile world government from Nebuchadnezzar's time on until what we call the second coming of Christ. In the dream, the coming of Christ to set up his messianic kingdom upon earth is likened to a stone cut out from the mountain without hands. It falls on the feet of the image and smashes the whole image from head to toe into a million smithereens, and the wind took it away, and the place thereof knew it no more.
Now that question, uh, that matter, that detail of this stone cut out without hands that fell upon the image and ground it to powder, finds an echo, of course, in the words of our blessed Lord Jesus in the New Testament. Let's just refer to them now so as to prepare ourselves for our study later on. And we read now the gospel by Luke, and this is Luke chapter twenty, It comes at the end of the parable of the husbandman. The owner of a vineyard planted the vineyard and let it out to farmers to husband it for him in his absence.
And from time to time, he sent his servants to collect the produce, but the husbandman refused and rejected, beat, and sometimes killed the messengers that were sent to collect the produce. So at long length, the owner of the vineyard decided to send his beloved son, saying, surely they will reverence him. But when the husbandman saw the owner's son coming, they conspired together and said, let's kill him, and then the inheritance will be ours. And they took him, cast him out of the vineyard, and killed him. By giving that parable, our Lord was indicating to the Jerusalem authorities that he knew exactly what they were about to do.
A few days from now, they would take Jesus himself, and casting him out of the vineyard of Israel would have him nailed to a cross and killed. And now our Lord finishes his parable and makes a comment on it. Verse fifteen: What therefore will the Lord of the vineyard do to those wicked husbandmen? He will come and destroy these husbandmen and will give the vineyard unto others. And when they heard it, they said, God forbid. But he looked upon them and said, What then is this that is written? The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made the head of the court.
Every one that falleth on that stone shall be broken to pieces. And now here comes the phrase that we're interested in especially. But on whomsoever it shall fall, it will scatter him as dust. And may God give us good understanding of his word. Now, last night we introduced ourselves to the study of the book of Daniel, and notice that his author comes before us as an easily recognizable type. He wasn't a sacred Jew living away from home in Babylon, center of the great Babylonian Empire, to which he had been taken as a prisoner of war.
But he speedily escaped the slave labor camps, was invited to take a university course, did well in his studies, entered the civil service, and had there in a spectacular career, rising at length to be head of the civil service in the great newly established Medo-Persian Empire. For all then that he prospered so remarkably in this strange and to him foreign culture, we last night were led to admire the fact that he maintained not only his personal piety and continued praying to his God, but maintained his faith, the faith of Israel, that Israel were God's chosen and elect people carrying a special role in the world, and given a glorious and unique gospel message to preach to the Gentiles.
And what a glorious message that was for Daniel to bear in that pagan Gentile court. The message that there is hope for this world. There is coming a glorious time of peace and plenty and glory. Our life experience is not meant to mock us. This world is not at its seat. It comes from the hands of God, and the glories of creation around us are not, I say, meant to mock us. There is a future for this world. Though this world is at present marred, yet God has a redemption for it. The day is coming when creation herself shall be delivered from her bondage to corruption into the glory of liberty of the children of God.
And we, like Daniel, are privileged to carry that glorious message of hope to our own contemporaries who flounder in their humanism and atheism and general worldliness and ungodliness and have no ultimate hope. And it is worthwhile our noticing at this stage in history, surely, that this gospel message preached by Daniel, preached by the Old Testament and elaborated in the new, stands in marked contrast to other major religious faiths in the world. We need that, uh, observation nowadays, do we not? For there is a spirit abroad that advocates pluralism.
Let's take, say they, the best out of all religions, because after all, are not all religions different ways of climbing the same mountain? And so they say, it doesn't matter whether you come up the north face or climb up the southern face, come from the east or come from the west. If you persevere, you'll all arrive at the top of the mountain and meet each other there. And all the world religions, they say, therefore, are but different ways of climbing the same mountains, and they came to come to the same pinnacle in the end. It sounds wonderful, but of course, a moment's thought is enough to show it isn't true. For the great religious faiths of the world would be insulted if you took them that superficially.
The only way to show respect for the great religious faiths of the world, faiths of the world, is to study them and take them seriously in what they say. And if you so do, you'll find there are irreconcilable differences and contradictions between Judaism and Christianity on the one hand, and say Hinduism on the other. Hinduism, for the most part, though Hinduism is a name given to a whole collection of religions, really. Hinduism, for the main part, holds that the material world around us, the material universe, and therefore ourselves with our bodies of matter, is if not unworthy, certainly less than the ideal.
That this material world was created by some lesser deity who hadn't enough wisdom not to do it, and went and created this rather intraday world of matter, instead of leaving things as they were, pure spirit. So that this world is not the ideal place. The, uh, ideal for each individual, therefore, is to pass through as quickly as possible the cycle of existence, born in this material world, and dying and going out into the world of pure spirits, and then having to be reborn again by reincarnation into this material world, and then going back again through death into the immaterial spiritual world.
The individual's wisdom would be to try and escape that endless cycle of rebirth and death, and to escape from this material world into the great spirit world beyond. As for human history, they say, human history on this earth has no particular goal. It is like a wheel that simply goes round forever lasting in circles, getting absolutely nowhere in the cycle of death and rebirth. And as I say, the wisdom of each individual is to escape from the rim of the wheel up through one of the spokes, it doesn't really matter which spoke, and try and get away from the material world into the refined essence of Nirvana, or whatever you should call it.
That you will see at once stands in marked contrast to what Judaism and Christianity, in other words, the Bible is saying. The Bible says that this world, this material world around us, is not an illusion. It's not unworthy. It is a very handiwork of God, the Almighty Creator, and when he created it, he pronounced it was good, and good it is. And not only the creation around us, but ourselves likewise. Our human bodies are not things to be despised, to be run away from, as the Greek philosophers like Socrates used to say. They're good. It is true that creation has been marred by the rebellion of the creature.
But still again, the Old and New Testament combine to tell us that God, in his great mercy, has a scheme of redemption for his creatures, from which springs new hope and hope everlasting. There is forgiveness, there is redemption, and not only forgiveness for our sins, but the very body of our, of matter that we inhabit, says the Bible, one day shall be redeemed itself. Our blessed Lord's resurrection, his bodily resurrection from the grave, is but the first fruits of a coming vast harvest. God will not be content to preserve our redeemed spirits. He's going to re- raise from the dead our redeemed bodies and give us bodies like to the body of our Lord's glory.
And not content with that, creation herself, as we have already said, shall be delivered from her bondage to corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. God the Creator is not going to be defeated. He's not going to bring this planet to an end, saying, sorry, it all went wrong, and it's beyond my power to redeem it. God shall yet be victorious. There is hope, and in the words of the apostle, God has begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We have a gospel message to preach. What a glorious gospel it was that Daniel, even in those hard old days, could bring to that highly developed and sophisticated civilization, which, for all its sophistication, had no hope.
As we saw last night, of course, that the crucial question in all this was, when and how would this great age of bliss and redemption come? And how would it come? Daniel's message was at the beginning of his life and remained all through his life, and after long experience in men and affairs in the Babylonian and Persian empires, he was still of the opinion that the great age and peace and of peace that we all long for, the paradise of God, would not come about by man's own effort, nor by man's progress, whether in technology or in politics, however great and glorious that progress was.
It would come about solely by the coming of God's Messiah, what we call the second coming of Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, to many people, that doctrine has seemed a very gloomy doctrine, as we remarked last evening. They say if that is so, it takes the heart out of all human effort. If, as you say, human society, human institutions are so, uh, uh, permeated with evil that in the end God will have to put them aside and replace them with the kingdom of his Messiah, surely that means that human effort at progress and improvement is all in vain and not worth making.
That is not so, of course. So Daniel held his view that the kingdom of God will have to replace all other kingdoms, and the kingdom of God will not come in by human progress. He himself gave himself to a career in the civil service of the two countries he served through many a long decades. He did not run away from life, but lived it to the full. Yet he continued to hold that human progress by itself will not bring in the age of being. It will come only with the coming of the Christ. Here in chapter two, he begins to tell us why that is, why that must be.
As he offers us in chapter two a critique of Gentile politics, and in particular, of the way Gentile world empires that have been from the time of Babylon onwards. I say he begins to do that because, in fact, tonight is only one of his critiques of Gentile powers. He gives another one from a completely different point of view in chapter seven of his prophecy. And to get a balanced view, we shall have to study both critiques and not rely just simply on one. But one is enough for any one evening, and so we shall start in chapter two this evening, and God willing, pursue the second tomorrow.
I hope, of course, I suppose to say that the critique of Gentile government that is offered us in chapter twelve was not, strictly speaking, Daniel's critique at all. It was God's. God gave this vision to Nebuchadnezzar and gave to Daniel to communicate the interpretation of it. And therefore, immediately for us moderns lies a problem, doesn't it? To say, come, come. Are you really saying that, uh, this vision recorded here in this Old Testament book, chapter two, was given by God? I mean, do you really accept dreams and things as amazing miracles?
Uh, but are you really claiming, uh, that we've got to believe it because this is, uh, somehow the reveal of Almighty God? We can't believe it, you'll say. We can't believe in divine revelation. And I think I understand what you're trying to say. Indeed, I have to be honest and tell you, there are a lot of so-called theologians today who agree with you. They profess to be theologians, but they do in fact, or i- i- i- indeed, if not in theory, deny the inspiration, not only of Daniel, but of a good deal of the Bible as well. They would tell you that what people have called inspired word of God is really these religious leaders and thinkers like Paul and Peter and Daniel and Isaiah, and they were very spiritually minded men and very shrewd men, and they're competent with the state of affairs in the world, and like our modern futurologists, and they're very clever and perceptive men too, aren't they?
They amass all the facts, they ponder them, they come to their shrewd conclusions, and they offer you their prognostications, their, their diagnosis of affairs, and what the world is liable to be in the next twenty years, forty years, or a hundred years. And that's all it is. And so that when we read the Bible, what we've got is the predictions of sensible and serious men, uh, shrewd men, but in the end, really, it's only human predictions. But of course, important as futurologists are, many a country has them. The governments need to know how to go about long-term planning, don't they?
They want to know what the trends are going to be, say, in the year two thousand and what the population is likely to be, and what, if it grows this amount, is likely to happen then. All that is very same and sensible, of course, to try and predict in that sense the future and not to plan for it. But it is an interesting fact that the Bible writers themselves are aware of this kind of objection, and they inform us, no, that's not what we mean by divine revelation. It is not that Moses was rather shrewd and was able to predict things, or Paul either. Peter himself tells us in his second letter, uh second Peter chapter one, um that the reason we can be absolutely sure and certain of divine prophecy is this, that no prophecy is of, and your translations probably say something like a private interpretation, and people take that to mean that when you get a prophecy, you can't put your own interpretation on it, you have to take somebody else's interpretation, the church's or somebody's.
That is not really what the Greek says. The Greek is talking about, Peter is talking about not how prophecy is to be interpreted, he's talking about how prophecy came, and he tells us no prophecy ever came by the will of man. And that's what he means when he says that no prophecy is our private. The Greek should be translated private analysis. Prophecy did not come about by shrewd men looking upon the world and its affairs and making their analyses and then hazarding a prediction as to what events were likely to to turn out to be. It did not come that way, says Peter. How did it come then?
It came this way. Men spake from God as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, says Peter. There is such a thing as genuine divine revelation. And we shall have to face that basic fact, aren't we, at the beginning of our studies of Daniel, because the whole issue will face us all the way through. It is a very interesting thing to me that the, that the story that we now meet in Daniel chapter two itself raises the question. And before it gets down to the details of the prophecy that God gave to Nebuchadnezzar, it raises this question itself deliberately. Is there such a thing as divine revelation?
And we see that as we read the story. You mustn't be offended, of course, if these ancient stories appear to be, uh, rather naive. You would, I- I'm sure you would prefer them to be in heavy theological language, you'll see, and it looks sophisticated, doesn't it? The story will appear very simple, but it is making a profound point. Let me tell you the story. Nebuchadnezzar went to bed one night, and she said that uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. I don't know what his worries were when he went to bed, but he fell off into sleep in a fitful slumber. And presently he dreamed, and he didn't know he was dreaming. We very rarely do when we dream, do we? We just dream. It all seems so real to start with, doesn't it?
And there he was. And he was outside the palace when he did that, and uh, he was going across the plains, uh, around Babylon, you'll say. Well, he was used to that. When all of a sudden, what on earth is that staring him in the face? He'd not noticed that before when he'd been out here. And since when had that come? There was a colossal statue standing on the plain. I never can ever turn around to see these courtiers and ask who on earth took this man who gave them permission, and there weren't any courtiers. That was odd. Didn't normally go out alone. Anyway, there it was, and he came forward to see this image thing, and when he got near, it was a, it was a statue, a colossal statue of a man.
Wow. It was so big, it was a man so big as to, well, it was a little bit, um, awesome that even to say frightening. It took a lot to frighten Nebuchadnezzar, but there it was. When you, when you write man big, he can become a bit of a sweat, can't he? A very big man. So anyway, here was this statue, and being a sensible chap, I suppose he, he, he, he turned to thinking about it. But he wasn't aware he'd ever given orders for anybody to put up this statue, and uh, and anyway. Whoever it was, what on earth was the artist trying to say? Statue of a man, what man?
Mighty, great big man, but there was only one big man around here as far as Nebuchadnezzar knew, and Nebuchadnezzar knew his name. And then horror of course, when he got near, the thing was a sort of composite. Well, modern art can go to funny extremes, can't it? But this was, this was a bit off, this was. I mean, the thing wasn't homogeneous, it was kind of a that. It was a head of gold, and then there was a rest of arms of silver, and then there was bronze, you'll see, and then there was iron. Oh, crudity of crudity. The, the feet were sort of part iron and part ceramics. Wow. What on earth was the artist trying to say?
He had a word with somebody when he got back to the palace, and just then he happened to notice, and well, that was odd too. There was a range of mountains around, but there were no mountains around the plane around his, uh, part of the world, but there they were. It seemed very odd. And as he was looking, it seemed to him as though the peak of one of the mountains suddenly came clear of the mountain, as though it was being by invisible hands, being sort of cut out, quarried out of the mountain. Then it began to get larger, and in a second or two he realized that he was coming his way. Look out, he thinks he's going to hit the image. And before he could say Jack Robinson, he did hit the image on the feet, and the whole thing exploded. There was no noise, but...
and then he woke up. What do you make of that? That was a dream. Well, thank the God, said he, that's a dream. And then, was it just a dream, or say? The ancients weren't the simpletons you may think. They knew the dreams come from all sorts of kinds of things, from worry in today's business, from a bit of undigested cheese, uh, but sometimes they felt that dreams could come from the gods. This was a spectacularly vivid dream, so vivid he could remember every detail now. Not like the dreams you have, and the next morning you can't remember what it was you dreamed. He can remember every detail of the dream.
Perhaps it was a message from the gods. And if it was a message from the gods, what on earth was it saying? A big man. There was only one big man in pattern, and the whole thing smashed as misery. That was a message from the gods. That would be serious, but I worry from that. And what was the real meaning of it? Now, of course, Nebuchadnezzar, like any oriental monarch, had a fleet of experts, magicians and sorcerers, they were called. We should call them scientists nowadays, you see. Yes. Don't you laugh too much about the ancient sorcerers, will you? You'll say they went into a lot of mumbo jumbo. Well, so they did.
Be careful that the thing doesn't come boomeranging back on you, sir. The, the medicals, for instance, a few years ago when I was a youth, they used to do all sorts of operations, and now they don't do them because now they admit it was all nonsense and bad. Hmm. Be careful. And the Babylonians were expert in the stars, and best they knew how, they knew a tremendous lot about astronomy, and they had silly interpretations by way of astrology. They weren't all fools. Uh, Nebuchadnezzar kept the whole fleet of them, and they were supposed to be able to interpret dreams that came from the gods. So perhaps he should call him.
But there was a point. Who called these, uh, these scientists in and asked them to interpret the, this dream? How did you know that their interpretation would be correct? He paid them a fat sum of money, but... I suppose some of these rascally magicians were hand in glove with some of his enemies that were wanting to unseat him from the government. You'll know if he admitted to them that this was a dream from the gods. You can see what they make of that, wouldn't they? They take they look at that as well. We regret to tell you that the gods are indicating you ought to abdicate. How would he know that they weren't handing blood with his opponents?
And he hit upon a scheme as he lay topping in his bed that morning. He knew what he would do. He'd settle that one. So the next day he called these scientists, and then they came in all their white cloaks. I don't know why scientists wear white overalls, but they do. And then they came, you will say. And he said, gentlemen, I dreamed a dream. Uh, I'd like to hear the interpretation. Listen, said your majesty, you tell us the dream and we'll tell you the interpretation. No, he said. No? No, you tell me the dream and then tell me the interpretation. They coughed a little. It wouldn't do to upset Nebuchadnezzar early in the morning before he'd had his coffee. No, they said, your majesty, uh, that's right, that's right what you say, actually, yes. You tell us the dream, and then we'll tell you the interpretation.
No, you won't, he said. You'll first tell me what I dreamed last night. You claim, don't you, that you're in touch with the gods, and uh, the gods reveal all sorts of secrets to you. That's your claim, isn't it, gentlemen? Well, prove it then. Before you can interpret my dream to my satisfaction, you prove to me you've had a message from the gods. You're supposed to know, aren't you? Well, then you tell me what I dreamed last night, and if you don't know, we'll find out from the gods. Then I shall know that you're talking by divine revelation, gentlemen. And when you first prove that point, then you can interpret to me the dream. When they told me what he said, as I say, they put it in very diplomatic language, but they said they'd never walked such a fool on the face of the earth.
No other king, emperor, prince, or any potentate had ever asked such a daft thing of anybody all these days. And they admitted that when it came to that, they had no communication from the gods. Give them the evidence, and they would interpret it. They couldn't supply you with the evidence. It was at that point Daniel came on the ski, on the scene, and he was a wise enough man and shrewd and versed in politics. Time and time again, he made the point to the king as he interpreted the dream. Sir, he says, I'm not telling you this because I am particularly true.
I'm not cleverer than your other scientists. I owe this to direct revelation of God, who showed me what you dreamed last night. Yes, the text itself is discussing with you whether there is such a thing as divine revelation. And so to make it abundantly clear, he's not now talking about revelation about the future, he's talking about revelation about the past. How could you, with all your shrewdness, guess what Nebuchadnezzar dreamed last night? That would take a clever man, wouldn't it? Being therefore encouraged, having been demonstrated to the man that Daniel had been shown what he dreamed, Nebuchadnezzar was ready to listen to the interpretation.
You'll say, well, that may go right to Nebuchadnezzar, but we weren't there, please, Mr. Preacher, we weren't there. You don't expect us to be impressed by that, do you? Do you expect us to believe that story? All right. But there's another way you can test its truth, can't you? Because we have a tremendous advantage over Master Nebuchadnezzar. He lived over two thousand years ago. And the things that were prophesied of him, now we can ask ourselves, have they in fact come true? And secondly, not only have they come true, but when it comes to the diagnosis, whereby God explains to us why Gentile powers will not bring in the great age of peace that we see, we can ask ourselves the question, can't we?
Does the diagnosis ring true? So we proceed to God's critique of Gentile power. And the first thing to notice is the marvelous rise up that God gives for human government. Pray, notice it to start with. I know that you will say to me that there's another view of Gentile government given us in chapter seven of this same book that puts Gentile government in very doubtful light. I know that. But for the time being, we're concentrating on the first diagnosis.
And there has a marvelous depiction of the majesty and the sheer glory of Gentile achievement in the realm of government. What Nebuchadnezzar saw by God's own deliberate design as a representation of the history of Gentile imperial powers in the earth was the image of a man all glorious and magnificent. Mark, it was a picture of a man, an image of a man, marvelously glorious, with a head of gold and shoulders and breasts of silver and thighs of copper, and majestic in his size, awesome almost, in its demeanor.
God was not, um, being sarcastic. He meant it, didn't he? Tell what is your estimate of human government? You might perhaps need to be wary of yourself if you are a Christian, from always looking just on one side and deploring it all as a tale of endless bloodshed, cruelty, and wickedness, and there's been a lot of government that has been there. But on the other, there is another side to it, isn't there? Human government, down the years, has been the story of great, immense human achievement. By the fifth century BC, the Greeks were very proud of their politics, you know.
They looked back upon the time when they said that human beings have lived in the forests and life was very beastly, I suppose like the pygmies still do to this day. And who of you would like to be a pygmy, I wonder? Don't you share with the Greeks the sense of progress? Would you prefer to live in, uh, the rainforest of Zaire the Pygmy or in Coventry City in all its glory? Would you prefer to live under Nebuchadnezzar, whom he would have slew, whom he would have kept alive, or under Mrs. Thatcher, not to say John Major, in a democracy? Yes, the Greeks are very proud of man's progress.
How would they come out of the forest, they said, and learn to live together in society, in cities, and learn to create laws and to strive more and more towards equality and justice and freedom. It is true that the Greeks eventually became disillusioned, that their political systems were abused, but we shouldn't show- throw out the baby with the bathwater, should we? And the Christian attitude is that we respect government. We are not to be subverted. There is no power but of God, says Holy Scripture, and they are God's ministers for the encouragement of well-doing and the punishment of evil doers.
We are not animals. I'm sure I've not to convince you, have I? You do believe in human progress and man's great achievement. Most of you have got a, a, a really modern watch on your wrist, haven't you? And you came in a super duper Japanese car, didn't you? And you, madam, you don't still have an old strutting door phone, do you? You have one of these Electrolux marvelous computer devised washing machines. Isn't life much more comfortable than it used to be? Be careful how you, uh, rant against modern civilization. And aren't you thankful now that you don't get sent to Australia for stealing a sheep? Of course, you wouldn't steal a sheep anyway. My view deplore those ancient days and feel that government, even in this last century, has made vast steps of progress and far more equitable than it used to be.
And if you feel that way, thank God. Is... will the preacher not tell us when the Messianic Kingdom of Christ is going to come? Will he not interpret for us the stages of the image and tell us that they represent this, that empire, and that the other empire, and who the toes are, and when the Lord Jesus is coming? Well, not tonight. Perhaps we should talk about that another night. The clock warns me that Monday morning approaches very quickly. And that is God's critique of human government and why it won't bring in universal peace. We need to hear it, don't we?
Because with the vast happenings that have happened in this last two years in Europe and Asia, the world is now looking around for a United Nations improved mission to the world, to bring peace, and one can implore, applaud the motive, surely, without being committed to the starry-eyed unrealism that somehow this will eventually succeed and bring in world peace. Why won't it? The first thing to notice about, uh, God's communication to measure the vision was that he said that none, that there would be a succession of world empires.
None of them will prove permanent. Now, that is so obvious to us in this advanced age that perhaps we don't notice its significance as a prophecy in those early days. There had been earlier empires, vast and great and significant. As I said, the first form of Babylon under Hammurabi and all his boys, and then Assyria and Egypt. That's enough for mankind at that stage to hope that one day they would develop a perfect empire that would last forever. And of course, it nestled in the, in the founder of every empire, it nestled in his heart, didn't he, the hope that his empire was going to be the exception.
It was going to last. When I was a boy, you know, my teachers at school labored to teach me geography all for nothing. In those days, a true depiction of the world, England was right in the center of the map. That's how I knew where to find it on the map, it was in the center. And most of the world was painted pink, Jose, and the sun never set on the British Empire. We thought it would be forever. It was a puny little thing, wasn't it? It lasted only a few years compared to some of the very big empires of the world. But none of them, said John, will prove permanent. Not you, Nebuchadnezzar, and your Neo-Babylonian empire, nor those that follow you. None will prove permanent.
Has it come true? And America is now looking a bit wobbly herself, isn't she? And as for the great Russian Empire, that they told us was going to last forever and give way eventually to the utopia that all men sought for, it managed to last very little more than seventy years. That's point number one. It is an extraordinary thing worth pondering, how that civilizations grow and flower and then decay.
They seem to run out of steam or energy or something, don't they? And generally end up either becoming second rate or disappearing altogether. Point number two. That while all these world governments will show different features, and all are in their way valuable, none of them is of absolute value. Nebuchadnezzar's unconditional absolute monarchy might be a head of gold, and that was glorious, but it wasn't of absolute value.
The iron that depicted the Roman emperor might not, empire might not have been so glorious, but was a great deal stronger, wasn't it, and more effective. And various political forms of government have held some advantages, mostly, and some disadvantages. None is of absolute value. And I fancy how we in our modern day, and particularly the Christian world, needs to listen to God. But if I may turn aside to make an observation, Christendom has had a fatal habit of mixing up Christianity and confusing Christianity with whatever political system happens to be in power at the moment.
So in the Middle Ages, when you had the divine right of kings and absolute monarchs, then Christendom favored absolute monarchy. And when, uh, great parts of Europe turned to constitutional monarchs, then the church favored constitutional monarchs. And now Christendom's great ideal is liberal democracy, isn't it? And Christianity has to be modeled after liberal democracy. And because liberal democracy has proved, in many respects, an equitable form of government, large sections of Christendom seem to think that it is of absolute value. It isn't indeed. Long ago, our Societies the Greeks said democracy was an acknowledged quality, and it certainly has its weaknesses.
Take moral questions like abortion. Liberal democracy says that, uh, you mustn't impose your views on anybody else. You see what that means? It means that when you come to the great moral issues of life, the government can't take a stand. What it does is to consult one extreme and the other extreme and come to a compromise. And the laws of the land are framed as a compromise, as though ultimate moral values were a matter of bargaining. Christianity can never consent to that, can it?
It's a highly dangerous thing. Because it is your head that present mo- modern liberal democracy is ab- of absolute value. It is a good system, perhaps the best system invented at all. It is not of absolute value, and it has its desperate weaknesses. And then the vision said something else, that the various forms of government would change, but that process of change would not in itself bring in the great age of peace. And what a message that has for our modern day, hasn't it? Well, you know what our communist Marxist friends taught this last seventy years around the world, don't you?
They taught that their political theory was based on the laws of nature that were absolutely irresistible. Following the idea, the philosophical idea of thesis and antithesis and then synthesis, and the process repeated time and time again. You'll see, you, you gradually work through the forms of government from serfdom, uh, you'll see through various forms of aristocracy and monarchis- monarchy, uh, then to capitalism, and then finally to socialism, and then to communism. And these were the irresistible laws of history. This is how history would evolve, and nothing you could do would stop it.
That's how they create. It was always a little difficult to understand why they felt they had to kill so many people to make the laws of history work, but there are, that's another story. To say why we needed to operate with the laws of history, if the laws of history were inevitable. And that the glorious utopia will come, inevitably come, because of the laws written into, into history of change, irresistible change. Change will bring in the utopia we desire. And it's proved wrong. Russia, the great power that influenced so many millions in the world and told them that they were going to build a utopia without God and in spite of God, if there was one.
It's crumbled to the very dust. I ask you to observe. The prophecy has proved true. And maybe now take the, the, the final lesson of the, of the image. That the messianic kingdom that eventually should be set up is not one of the series. It isn't that humans should do their best and gradually progress through various forms of government, till imperceptibly and little by little human government merges with the government of God. And hey presto, one day you'll wake up and find that this is the kingdom of God come. No, don't do that way. The lesson of the images, that the great messianic Kingdom of Christ is not one in the series.
It's a totally different thing. When it comes, it will smash all human government to pieces and take its place. Why will that be necessary? Here we come to our final lesson. Because that great image, majestic as it was, was basically unstable. His feet were made part of iron and part of ceramics. Well, even a schoolboy would know that that wasn't a recipe for stability. But the ceramic wouldn't mix with the iron, and the iron wouldn't mix with the ceramics, and it wouldn't been, uh, so much of a matter if it had been the head of it made of iron and ceramic, an unmixed, uh, uncoherent mixture, particularly if it was meant to represent Nebuchadnezzar's brain.
That would have been perhaps a suitable metaphor. But no, it wasn't in the head, it was in the feet. And then the image, great and glorious and magnificent, was essentially unstable. It wouldn't have lasted anyhow. Soon it would have fallen on its face, and God in his mercy removed it. Unstable for why? It will mix themselves, says the ancient text, with the seed of man, but it shall not prosper. And at this late hour, I consent myself to draw on a general lesson from it. This very impressive man had this fatal weakness.
Governments have found it, haven't they? And the more democratic they've tried to become, the worse it become. Because when the major- when the people rule, then the government can be at their mercy. But there's a deeper flaw, isn't there? It lies in the heart of man himself. It lies not only in governments, but in the end it lies in you and me. You are a mixture, aren't you? Well, I don't know about you, but I am. You should hear me when I get up in the morning commanding myself how to behave. I've got my ideas, I'll have you know, and as I look at myself in the mirror when I give myself a good le- lecture, I'm maybe could never himself wouldn't be more imperious.
I say now, boy, you're going to stop this nonsense and you're going to do this and this and this and this, and you're going to do it. Then I find there's another part in me, and I have to confess like the Apostle Paul confessed, oh, wretched man that I am. I'm very good at commanding, but not so good at carrying it out, you know. The things that I would do, the good things I would do, I don't do, and the bad things I don't want to do, those I do, oh, wretched man that I am. And that's, that is the basic human problem, isn't it? Well, now as late as the nineteen fifties, the communists were holding their great congresses in Russia, and at one of them they announced the program for the congress. It was this.
Our Marxist theory, they said, in effect, is a marvelous theory, but it won't work without human beings. There's no good having a theory. We must aim to create a new man. The lesson is there for everybody to see. We will have wonderful theories. Where they break down is in the weakness and sinfulness of the human heart. And any scheme that does not allow for the fact that man's heart is basically evil, as the Lord Jesus said. The heart of man is deceitful about all things and desperately sick.
Any political theory that does not take in on board that absolute basic fact is doomed. And in the end, of course, its power is doomed, because that is the fact. What hope have we then of a golden utopia ever coming? Listen to the conclusion of the matter. What Nebuchadnezzar saw was a stone cut out without hands, and that in biblical language means by divine power. Stone cut out with divine power smashed this tottering image and in its place put a kingdom based on God's design.
Here is no pessimistic message, here is gospel. You see, if there is going to be a kingdom of peace and glory, then its first condition is this. Let me repeat it to you in the words of our Lord Jesus. Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. No mere outward reform will do. No political theory will suffice to cure the people, the trouble and the weakness. It needs nothing less than a radical new birth. And that is why the Lord Jesus has not yet set up his kingdom in power and great glory.
He waits to perform this greater miracle in the hearts of men and women who confess their weakness and sinfulness and come to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and be born again. Does not mean that when we first trust Christ, we're sinless, of course not. It means that when we receive the Savior, there is implanted a life within us that is of supernatural origin and is the basis for life in the coming kingdom of God. So let us be wise and listen not only to God's me- uh, to God's message to Nebuchadnezzar, but to our Lord's comment on it.
He likened himself to a stone, didn't he? As Isaiah had foretold, God has laid the chief cornerstone. The building of our lives and the building of eternity is only safe when based on that cornerstone, which is Jesus Christ. Many stumble at it, don't they? And stumbling falls are broken. For the world still finds it difficult to hold that the key to the world's problem is a Jesus who was crucified as a criminal on a cross. It seems crass nonsense to the world, a message of despicable weakness and folly. But the ages have proved that, that this apparent foolish message is the power of God unto salvation.
And it is no bad thing if stumbling first, we find ourselves broken and find that in the way to repentance and to faith and to the proving by personal experience that Jesus Christ is alive and the new birth is a reality. But let us also be warned. It's one thing to stumble in difficulty and eventually come to accept. What shall we be said of those who reject it knowingly and outright? On whomsoever the stone shall fall, said Christ, echoing the words of Daniel's vision.
When Jesus Christ comes again in power and great glory to set up his kingdom and to destroy them that know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is on whomsoever that stone shall fall, it shall crush him to powder. God is exceedingly patient. He has his plans for the redevelopment of earth. He will not wait forever, and in the end will have to remove all those who deliberately opposed it.
The time is late. Forgive me for going on, but you are so kind, and you have a cure in your own hand. If I have troubled you by my lengthy silence, never invite me again. But for the moment, let us pray and ask God that he will write his message on our heart, the prophet there. Our Father, we thank thee once more for these ancient prophecies, for the simplicity and vividness of them, and yet for the profundity of their meaning. We thank thee for the scope of this great vision and the glorious future that it describes. But in these moments, we pray grace and wisdom of thee, that we may apply their fundamental lesson to our own hearts.
O God, grant that none of us who tonight here have sat under thy word might be those who fall upon this stone, and certainly not those who reject it, but rather be those who come to find in Jesus Christ crucified and risen the power of God unto salvation. So we ask thy blessing and thy word and commit us to thee for this night, through that same Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
