Civil Government (12) - Nebuchadnezzar's Dream

When Daniel the prophet was living in Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream. Daniel told him the dream before he gave the interpretation.

You looked, O king, and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous,dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. The head of the statue was made ofpure 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. Whileyou were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck thestatue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron, theclay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were broken to pieces at the same timeand became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept themaway without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a hugemountain and filled the whole earth (Dan 2:31-35).

Daniel explained the meaning of the dream to Nebuchadnezzar.

You are that head of gold. After you, anotherkingdom will rise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, willrule over the whole earth. Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strongas iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things topieces, so it will crush and break all the others (Dan 2:39,40).

Christians have put a lot of effort into working out who these kingdoms represent. They are generally though to represent the kingdoms of Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece and Rome.

In many ways, it does not matter who the different parts of the statue represent. The really important point is that they are all part of the same statue. The statue represents human government in opposition to God. The various kingdoms are different attempts at human government, but they are all united in a common purpose. They all attempt to establish order in the world, without reference to God. They all follow their predecessor Nimrod in standing against God.

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