The bible prophet Daniel is best known for surviving the lions den but his role as a prophet far surpasses this well known story. In fact, he first comes on the scene during the fulfilment of Jerimiahs 100 yr old prophecy (in Chapter 25) in which the people of the North, and King Nebuchadnezzar (who is specifically mentioned in the prophecy), put Israel into captivity for 70 years. Sure enough, King Neb DOES EXACTLY THAT and Daniel along with 3 friends (we'll come to these guys later) gets put into his service as trainee administrators.
Up to the age of 18, Daniel attended the school of the prophets in Jerusalem under Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah and Nahum, but now he has to carry the prophetic torch in the dark time to come. Sure enough, some 3 years later, King Neb has a dream which haunts him and he challenges all his wise men, sourcers and astrologers to interpret the dream on pain of death! But to make matters worse, he won't even tell them the dream - he says 'Tell me what dream I had' to which the wise men reply 'no king has ever asked something this hard!'.
Well, the kings sends out orders to kill all the wise men and Daniel decides to do something about it. He and his 3 friends pray and ask God to reveal to them the dream and give an interpretation. Sure enough, during the night, Daniel sees a vision and in the morning goes to see the king.
He tells the King that he saw a huge statue with a Gold head, silver breast and arms, Bronze belly and thighs, legs of Iron and feet of partly baked iron and clay. Out of the statue is cut a rock by hands which are not human and this rock smashes the statue to pieces from the feet and them forms a mountain larger than any thing else around! King Neb is amazed!
Then Daniel explains that the Head is King Neb and after him other great nations will rise us. King Neb's capital Babaylon was full of Gold and unlike any kingdom before him - he was the head of Gold. A Kingdom after him would come next and this is known to be that of the Medo- Persians from 539Bc to 332BC(known for their silver wealth) and they in turn would be replaced by another kingdom - this time Alexander the Great who controlled most of the known world within 10 years and whose soldiers wore bronze helmets, breastplates, bronze shields and bronze swords. Alexander died some 10 years later at the age of 33 and his kingdom was divided into 4 shortly afterwards. These 4 sections were overrun in 168BC at the battle of Pynda by the mighty kingdom of Rome and it's Iron weaponry.
So we have Gold, Siler, Bronze and Iron which in turn directly represent the world powers for the next 450 years namely King Neb, Medo Persians (Cyrus, Darius etc), Alexander the Great and the Romans. So far, Daniels is doing pretty well!
The prophecy however shows no single fifth kingdom rising up in power, rather a more fragile one with some strength in the iron but also weakness in the clay. Future attempts to create a world government would fail and would always result in division. Sure enough, since the downfall of ther Roman empire, numerous attempts to form /create a fifth world power have been made, for example all attempts to form a single united Europe have failed. Charlemagne in 8th Century, Charles IV in 14th Century, Loius XIV in 17th century, Napoleon in 19th Century and Hitler in 20th Century. After the world wars there was the League of Nations which has become the UN which in turn began the Common Market. This has resulted in the loss of many currencies and the introduction of the Euro in an attempt to bring Europe under one Government. But it is all in vain and current economic circumstances would appear to be the next weak point in the chain with Greece, Ireland and Spain all being bailed out by an increasingly weakened Europe! Daniels prophecy says it will not be successful so don't be surprised if Britian never joins the Euro!
God did however cut the rock from the statue which outlasted all these kingdoms, He has established His kingdom and it will not be overcome. Jesus Christ, the Cornerstone/ the capstone, the stone the builders rejected is that King of Kings! The prophecy says he will hit the feet of the staue - that's the bit which represents modern times - today, the world we live in! His Kingdom will not be overcome and it will remain forever.
So, Daniel is more than the Prophet who survived the Lions den! In this one interpretation, he reveals through the Holy Spirit all the kingdoms which will rule the earth for the next 2,500 years - and guess what - he was right! Now that is some coincidence isn't it?
This single thing is enough to show that Gods word is true but what must still happen is the return of Jesus Christ and the establishing of His kingdom. It will happen, just as everything else in Daniels prophecy has happened! The great news is this, anyone who repents of his sins and believes in his heart that Jesus is the Christ and speaks with his mouth that Jesus is Lord and then repents of his sin will be born again into Christs Kingdom! Think about it and decide for yourself if Daniel was lucky! The alternative is that God revealed to Daniel what would happen over the next 2,500 years and it was right - which would mean that God is real and you have to do something about that!
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