SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/8/2013
10:22 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
God displays His wisdom & power
PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Daniel 2:31-45
Message of the
verses: 31 ¶ "You, O king, were looking and behold,
there was a single great statue; that statue, which was large and of
extraordinary splendor, was standing in front of you, and its appearance was
awesome. 32 "The head of that
statue was made of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and
its thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of
iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. 34 "You continued looking until a stone was
cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and
crushed them. 35 "Then the iron,
the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time
and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried
them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the
statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.”
As we look at the description of the dream that Daniel told
to Nebuchadnezzar I am sure that the king was probably owe struck in what came
out of Daniel’s mouth, and that he also knew that Daniel would be able to tell
him what this dream meant. We will spend
more time on the interpretation of the dream than the dream itself.
The Interpretation:
(Daniel 2:36-45): 36 "This was the dream; now we (Speaking of Daniel
& his friends) will tell its interpretation before the king. 37 "You, O king, are the king of kings, to
whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength and the
glory; 38 and wherever the sons of men
dwell, or the beasts of the field, or the birds of the sky, He has given them into your hand and
has caused you to rule over them all. You are the head of gold. 39 "After you there will arise another
kingdom inferior to you,
then another third kingdom of bronze, which will rule over all the earth.
40 "Then there will be a fourth
kingdom as strong as iron; inasmuch as iron crushes and shatters all things,
so, like iron that breaks in pieces, it will crush and break all these in
pieces. 41 "In that you saw the
feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided
kingdom; but it will have in it the toughness of iron, inasmuch as you saw the
iron mixed with common clay. 42 "As
the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of pottery, so some of the
kingdom will be strong and part of it will be brittle. 43 "And in that you saw the iron mixed with
common clay, they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they
will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery.
44 "In the days of those kings the God of heaven will
set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be
left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but
it will itself endure forever. 45
"Inasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain
without hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver
and the gold, the great
God has made known to the king what will take place in the future; so
the dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.’”
The dream that Nebuchadnezzar had represented four Gentile
nations:
1)
The head of
gold—Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian empire.
This lasted from 636BC until 539
BC. Let us look at Jeremiah 51:7 “Babylon
has been a golden cup in the hand of the LORD, Intoxicating all the earth. The
nations have drunk of her wine; Therefore the nations are going mad.”
2)
Now we will
look at the breast and the arms of silver which represent the Medo-Persian
Empire and it lasted from 539 BC until 330 BC.
We will look more closely at it when we get to Daniel chapter five.
3)
The belly and
thighs of bronze represent the Grecian kingdom which lasted from 330 BC until
63 BC. Alexander the Great was the one
who established this empire and Daniel will have more to say about him and the
empire later on in his book.
4)
The legs of
iron and feet of iron and clay represent the Roman Empire which went from 63 BC
until 475 AD. Dr. Wiersbe writes “Iron
represents strength but clay represents weakness. Rome was strong in law, but the empire
included so many weakness.” “The people
will be a mixture and will not remain united (Daniel 2:43 NIV).”
5)
The destruction
of the image represents the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ who is the Stone,
and at that time He will judge His enemies and He will establish His universal
kingdom.
We
can see from this explanation that God is in control of history, and I believe
that it is because of His grace that He
gives this information to Daniel so that we have it today to understand what
will take place in the future. By doing
this Daniel becomes one of the most attacked book in all of the Bible.
How
is it that God knows the future? He
knows it because He has planned it. Some
people have problems with this as they try to put God in a box or make Him
small because they do not like the way their lives are turning out, and so they
blame it on God. In the newest (to me)
book that I am reading about getting to know God better by studying His
attributes the author says the following, “Pray that God will show me something about Himself as I
read His Word and that I will be determined to accept what He teaches me
about Himself.”
One
of the OT prophets was having a problem with the sin that was going on in Judah
and so He was complaining to God about it and God told him that He was going to
use the Babylonians to defeat Judah to which the prophet was again upset with
God for how He was going to take care of the sin in Judah. The prophet was Habakkuk and near the end of
his book he writes “16 ¶ I heard and my
inward parts trembled, At the sound my lips quivered. Decay enters my bones,
And in my place I tremble. Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress,
For the people to arise who will invade us. 17
Though the fig tree should not blossom And there be no fruit on the
vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail And the fields produce no
food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold And there be no cattle
in the stalls, 18 Yet I will exult in
the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. 19 The Lord GOD is my strength, And He has made
my feet like hinds’ feet, And makes me walk on my high places. For the choir
director, on my stringed instruments (Hab. 3:16-19.”
The
next thing we can learn from this dream is that as we look at this statue we
will see that it is top heavy, and the material at the top is much more
valuable than at the bottom. Because it
is top heavy we realize that it has a chance to fall over at any time and this
may represent how nations have come into being and then fallen. Thoreau said America “had improved means to
unimproved ends,” and this statement can be said about any developing
nation. During this time in the history
of the world we have great means to very rapidly sending messages and images to
most any part of the world, but the problem in most cases is what we have to
say. The good news of the gospel is the
best thing to spread around the world for that will provide the means of
knowing how to get right with God and have the power to save people from their
sins and give eternal life to those who accept the free gift of salvation
through the Lord Jesus Christ.
The
third thing we see from this dream is that it will be very difficult to hold
things together at the end of the age, for we see at the end of the age the kingdom
will be made of iron and clay which does not hold together very well. Iron is strong but clay is not and clay even
robs the iron of its ability to hold things together for wherever the clay
touches the iron it makes it weaker.
Dr.
Wiersbe writes “Man at his bes is clay, for God made him out of the dust of the
earth. Though man and woman are both
made in the image of God, sin has robbed us of the dominion He gave us (Gen.
1:26). We are both creators and
destroyers, and we seem bent on destroying one another and the world God has
graciously given us. The heart of every
problem is the problem of the human heart—rebellion against God.”
The
fourth truth we see from the statue is what is the best and that is the Jesus
Christ will return to establish His kingdom.
We see in this prophecy that the stone was made without hands and that
has to mean that it was not created, which means it is speaking of God.
Dr.
Wiersbe writes “It appears that the Roman Empire will in some ways continue
until the end of the age and culminate in the rule of ten kings (Dan. 2:44;
7:24-27; Rev. 17:3, 12-18). The world
will be delivered from evil, not bay a process, but by a crisis, the promised
return of Jesus Christ. Whatever remains
of the four Gentile kingdoms, passed from one kingdom to the next, will be
destroyed and turned into chaff. Then
Christ will establish His kingdom which will fill all the earth.”
As
believer’s in Jesus Christ we have a lot to look forward to, but we also have a
great job to accomplish through the power of the Holy Spirit in spreading the
Gospel to all nations around the world.
Dr.
Wiersbe concludes his commentary on this section with these words “In giving
the dream and enabling Daniel to know the dream and explain it, God displayed
His wisdom and power. God has the wisdom
to plan the ages and the power to execute His plan. King Nebuchadnezzar ruled from 605 BC to 562
BC, but Jesus Christ will reign forever and ever, and of His kingdom there
shall be no end.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: One of the
things that I have been trying to do is to see God in the passages that I read
and study. Today I see God’s power,
wisdom, love, and grace and praise Him for these attributes.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord with my future.
Memory verses for the
week: Psalm 32:7-10:
7 You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble;
You surround me with songs of deliverance.
Selah. 8 I will instruct you and
teach you in the way that you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon
you. 9 Do not be as the horse or as the
mule which has no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold
them in check, otherwise they will not come near you. 10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but he
who trusts in the Lord, lovingkindness shall surround you.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Able” (Genesis 4:8)
Today’s Bible
Question: “Which book sets forth the Patriarchal
era from Abraham to Joseph, a family history of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?”
Answer in tomorrow’s SD.
4/8/2013 12:17 PM
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