Daniel 2:31-49 (Image of Gold, Silver, Bronze, Iron, Clay)
Daniel 3:1-18 (Image of God – Fiery Furnace 1)
Daniel 3:19-30 (Fiery Furnace 2)
Daniel 4:1-18 (The King’s new dream)
Daniel 4:19-27 (Daniel’s Interpretation & Plea for repentance)
Daniel 4:28-37 (Fulfillment of the dream)
Those were the readings in Daniel since I last posted (Sorry, Ethan Isaiah is too cute). I have to be truthful, I am absolutely stuck as to what the heck Daniel 4 is doing in the book. But, Dan 2 and 3 are staples. If you have read any of the popular end of the world books Daniel 2 or the image usually appears in them. And this image is also at the center of scholarly debate. Ask any scholar what the legs of iron represent and you have a pretty good litmus test for that person’s view of scripture. The person with a high view of scripture will probably answer Rome. That person assumes that the Book was written in the late 500s BC and has no problem with predictive prophecy. Others would probably answer Greece. They deny predictive prophecy and so the last empire/section of the image has to the one in power at the supposed time of writing. They would answer Daniel was written in 164 BC, becuase Daniel describes events up until that time, and so the empire must be Greece.
But all of that is to miss the real important piece. A rock, not made from human hands, destroys the image and covers the entire world. God sets up His kingdom that will not be overcome but will overcome the kingdoms and empires of the world. Deep in the OT we hear the proclamation of the Gospel. The kingdom of God is coming and all before it will be swept away. Those ancient empires are long gone. Even the empires of the east have fallen. And the gospel message of Christ has been growing and has been proclaimed around the globe. Empires have risen and empires have fallen – empires of gold (excuse my bias but the British Empire was pretty golden) to Empires of mixed Iron and Clay (WW2 Germany, Italy, Japan). The message of the church still stands and grows. Don’t worship the empire (the image), but worship Christ the Rock on which the church stands.
