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Daniel Chapter 2, Part 3

The Kingdom of God

1st March 2007

We've been looking at Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a statue, as described in Daniel Chapter 2. The part of the dream that speaks about the kingdom of God is:

Daniel 2:34-35
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 broken to pieces at the same time 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.

Daniel interpreted this as follows:

Daniel 2:44-45
"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 for ever. 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 the interpretation is trustworthy."

As we saw last week, the fulfilment of this prophecy can be dated by the fact that it would occur "In the time of those kings", which we understood was the Roman Empire. The event that brought in the kingdom of God was "a rock was cut out, but not by human hands". The rock is Jesus Christ:

Genesis 49:23-25
...because of the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob, because of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel, because of your father's God, who helps you, because of the Almighty...

Deuteronomy 32:3-4
...Oh, praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just.
(see also verses 15, 18, 31, 37)

1 Samuel 2:2
There is no-one holy like the LORD; there is no-one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.

2 Samuel 22:2-3
The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my saviour...

(Also verses 32, 47) (This Psalm is quoted in Psalm 18).

1 Corinthians 10:1-4
...our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

1 Peter 2:4-8
As you come to him, the living Stone - rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him - you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame." Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone," and, "A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall";...

And there are several other scriptures I could have quoted.

I've laboured this point a little, to make it clear that Jesus is the rock that the dream talks about. The Rock - Jesus Christ - "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 broken to pieces at the same time and became like chaff on a threshing-floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace". And what remains of the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek or Roman empires? Sure, we have some nice archeological artifacts, and some interesting books. But their power has been utterly destroyed, while the power of the kingdom of God grows and grows.

Some Christians haven't seen that the kingdom of God was inaugurated at that time. There are even some (who are influenced by pre-millenialist teachings) that believe that the kingdom of God is entirely in the future.

(Some even manage to believe that Europe is still, in some vague sense, the Roman empire. Ridiculous as it seems now, many of these once imagined that the European Union was the 10-horned beast of Revelation! Some of them made a lot of noise when there were 10 countries in the EU but they went quiet since it grew to 12, then 15 then 26! Of course, if your theology requires you to believe that the EU is the same thing as the Roman empire, it's time to change your theology. That makes as much sense as saying the Roman empire was the same thing as the Babylonian empire. Or that black is white).

But, although it's going to get better and better - and be perfect in Heaven - it's also here and now. It's not just "pie in the sky when you die", it's also "steak on the plate while you wait". Let me remind you of a few scriptures that confirm the wonderful truth that the kingdom of God started with the first coming of Christ during the time of the Roman empire, and that it's growing and filling the whole earth, day by day:

Matthew 12:28
if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

- Note the tense: "the kingdom of God has come".

Matthew 21:31
Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you."

- Again, note the tense: People "are entering the kingdom of God."

Mark 9:1
And he said to them, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power."

(and He said that 2000 years ago)

Matthew 13:31-33
He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches."
He told them still another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough."

In the dream, "the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth". The kingdom of God has remained for 2,000 years so far, and it continues to grow. In the UK (and some other countries) it doesn't feel like that. But, taking the world as a whole, it's the truth. There are more Christians alive today that there have ever been. And Daniel's interpretation promises that this kingdom "will never be destroyed"!

What is the kingdom of God? It's what it says - the sovereign rule of God. It brings righteousness, peace and joy. And it brings power. And it's here now:

Romans 14:17
the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit

1 Corinthians 4:20
the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.

Notice: is, not will be.

The phrase "the kingdom of God" occurs 65 times in the New Testament, and the synonymous phrase "the kingdom of Heaven" occurs a further 31 times. So it's important. Eight times, the gospel (the good news) is called "the gospel of the kingdom".

Why does all this matter to you and me? Isn't it just theory? It matters because what we believe affects how we live. How powerful is your God? How much is He in control? How much does He intervene in your life and in world history? The church in our country is in danger of retreating into impotently hoping things will get better when we reach heaven. They will! But they would be a lot better here and now if the church truly grasped the greatness, the love, and the authority of God in this world. If we believed in and accepted the kingdom of God, in fact.

Daniel Chapter 1 was about God's sovereignty in the life of one man, Daniel. God is King and so we must follow His teachings in the whole of scripture, whether we like them or not, whether they make us comfortable or uncomfortable.

Chapter 2 teaches us that God is sovereign not only over our individual lives as His followers, but over all of history, the history of the whole world: Christian, pagan, Muslim, Hindu, atheist and all. God decided which empires were to rule in this world, in what order, and what they would be like. He ordained that His Son, Jesus Christ, would come during the Roman empire and die for our sins, and that He would rise from the dead. He ordained that the kingdom of God would prosper in the world from that time on and would fill the whole earth. And He is working out His purposes in history. We truly serve a mighty God. We see Him far too small if we only consider His influence on our little lives. Jesus sits enthroned in Heaven - He is the ruler of Heaven and Earth.