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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
“Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as
you were lying in bed are these:”
“As Your Majesty was lying there, your mind turned to things
to come, and the Revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen. As
for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom
than anyone else alive, but so that Your Majesty may know the interpretation
and that you may understand what went through your mind.”
“Your Majesty looked, and there before you stood a large
statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. The head of the
statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and
thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked
clay. While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It
struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron,
the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and
became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away
without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge
mountain and filled the whole earth.”
“This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the
king. Your Majesty, you are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you
dominion and power and might and glory; in your hands he has placed all mankind
and the beasts of the field and the birds in the sky. Wherever they live, he
has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.”
“After you, another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours.
Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. Finally,
there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes
everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all
the others. Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay
and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of
the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes
were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and
partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the
people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes
with clay.”
“In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a
kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It
will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself
endure forever. This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a
mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the
clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.”
“The great God has shown the king what will take place in
the future. The dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.”
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to
God.
Have you ever had a dream?
Happens to me all the time it seems. Maybe you can relate.
Sometimes those dreams are ones I can remember but most of
the time they are easily forgotten, seemingly deleted as soon as I awake. But
as for the ones I do recall, they almost have one thing in common.
They are just plain weird.
Weird people in weird places in weird situations, scenes so bizarre they seem to ingrain themselves in my memory banks to the point where I can talk to others about what I have dreamed.
Weird people in weird places in weird situations, scenes so bizarre they seem to ingrain themselves in my memory banks to the point where I can talk to others about what I have dreamed.
This is what we see happening to the king of Babylon in
today’s scripture passage as he has had a dream he has been unable to escape, a
dream that terrified him, leaving him grasping for an interpretation as to what
it all meant.
Enter Daniel who God empowered, not only with the gift of
interpreting dreams, but with the specific answer to Nebuchadnezzar’s dream
which we see revealed in the following verses:
“Your dream and the
visions that passed through your mind as you were lying in bed are these:”
“As Your Majesty was
lying there, your mind turned to things to come, and the Revealer of mysteries
showed you what is going to happen. As for me, this mystery has been revealed
to me, not because I have greater wisdom than anyone else alive, but so that Your
Majesty may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went
through your mind.”
“Your Majesty looked,
and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome
in appearance. The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms
of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of
iron and partly of baked clay. While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but
not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and
smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were
all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer.
The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the
statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.”
“This was the dream,
and now we will interpret it to the king. Your Majesty, you are the king of
kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; in
your hands he has placed all mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds
in the sky. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are
that head of gold.”
“After you, another
kingdom will arise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze,
will rule over the whole earth. Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong
as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to
pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. Just as you saw that the
feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a
divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as
you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so
this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the
iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain
united, any more than iron mixes with clay.”
“In the time of those
kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed,
nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and
bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. This is the meaning of
the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock
that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.”
“The great God has
shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and its
interpretation is trustworthy.” Daniel 2:28b-45
First of all, note that Daniel makes it clear to
Nebuchadnezzar that the visions he witnessed in the dream were going to happen.
They were forebodings of “things to come” from God, the “Revealer of mysteries”,
and as we saw in yesterday’s devotion, Daniel wanted the king to know that the
dream interpretation wasn’t from him, once again deferring to divine
attribution. God had simply given Daniel the interpretation so Nebuchadnezzar
could understand what went through his mind.
With all the preliminary explanations finished, Daniel got
down to breaking down the dream.
Note the essence of the dream was all about man-made empires
that would rise and fall before a single almighty kingdom would come and take
their place. The Babylonians and Nebuchadnezzar were represented by the enormous
statue’s head which was “made of pure gold” but their reign would not last
forever for they would be replaced by another kingdom which would be “inferior”
to the Babylonian empire. That kingdom, the Persian empire, was symbolized by
the silver chest and arms of the statue within the dream. Next up for
destruction was the bronze belly and thighs which foretold the coming Greek empire
followed by the Roman kingdom, denoted by the legs of iron and feet which were
part iron and part clay.
Every kingdom would rise and fall, replaced by the Son of
God, Jesus, who was coming to be the King of kings and Lord of lords, the
predicted Messiah and Savior of the world to which God would grant all
authority over heaven and earth. It was Jesus who was represented by the rock
which struck and destroyed the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and God would
build His kingdom here on earth on the foundation of His Son.
In other words, Jesus would become the chief cornerstone,
the Solid Rock on which all who place their hope and trust in Him could stand. All
other nations and powers have risen and fallen but Christ Jesus remains and
will rule forever. His reign will never end and His kingdom will never be
destroyed because God destined it to “endure forever”.
This is what God said would come through Nebuchadnezzar’s
dream which definitely came true, validating Daniel’s promise that the “interpretation
is trustworthy”. And it has remained true and trustworthy through the ages for
the kingdom of God, placed under the authority of Jesus His Son, still reigns
and rules supreme today and no other kingdom can rival it.
Today and every day, make sure you take the time to show
your honor and respect to Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords who has
ruled through all the ages and will rule and reign forever more.
Amen
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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