Daniel 2:27-30
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Events that will happen in days to come
What do you know about the "end of the world"?
Observe the revelation which God showed to Daniel the prophet:
Daniel 2:27-30
"Daniel replied, “No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you were lying in bed are these:"
“As Your Majesty was lying there, your mind turned to things to come, and the revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen. As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than anyone else alive, but so that Your Majesty may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind"
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INTERLINEAR
If you have compared NIV with the interlinear i Aramaic-English, you have found a good translation, but with some differences about the "professions" (wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner) In the NOTE at the end of Daniel 2:1-2 the subject is explained.
The dream of Nebuchadnezzar, with the interpretation which God gave to Daniel the prophet, has a parallel passage in the vision that God gave to the prophet in Daniel chapter seven, and the chapters from eight to twelve elaborate some parts of the main vision. With the interpretation of the king's dream begins the great prophecy of Daniel, which deals with:
1) Babylonia; it's significance as a world power and the prophecy of being replaced at the end by another kingdom.
2) The succession of kingdoms which should come after Babylonia, until the Kingdom of God (some of them in detail)
3) The Kingdom of God and the eternity (elaborating main subjects as the restoration of Israel, the resurrection of the dead, the Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Israel - Daniel prophesied both His first and second Coming - and the eternal Kingdom of the Messiah, who will be the King of those who "will awake to everlasting life")
This prophecy is one of the most awesome ones in the Bible. Through centuries has been interpreted by Jewish rabbis, Christian exegetes and Islamic mufassireen, among others, which identified the kingdoms of the prophecy with those we know about through secular history (observe that in the time of Daniel, the great world power was Babylonia and the rest was predictive prophecy, but nowadays we know many things that were prophesied in the book of Daniel, and it has been fulfilled with amazing precision). Most of the knowledge we have about "the last times" and "the end of the world" comes from this prophecy, that was cited by our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles who wrote the New Testament, especially by John in the book of Revelation, which deals primarily with this issue.
If you want to get that revelation which God has given us about these things, you'll have to receive and understand the things that they said and wrote. Especially because our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, spoke about the book of Daniel as a prophecy, inspired by the Spirit of God, and spoke with certain detail about that "end of the world". His apostles, too, who were filled with the Holy Spirit, the One who gave them the revelations that they wrote, confirm those great prophecies of Daniel and Our Lord.
Is this revelation so important?, you could ask yourself. Oh yeah, surely it is. The God of Heaven gives this issue the greatest importance in the Scriptures. The book of Daniel is the last one in the group of the "major prophets" and deals with this revelation in detail; Zechariah and Malachi, the last prophets of the OT, take the issue too, and the book of Revelation, the last one in the Bible, has as its main theme the revelation about the end of times and eternity. We can see that both OT and NT deal with words about the last times in their conclusion.
We have spoken before about the importance of the knowledge of the goals to wich we are striving in our lives. Let me tell you, God has "goals" of His own, and He leads this world that He created to those goals, which are treated in the predictive prophecies about the end of times. To ignore this would make us choose goals for our lives which have nothing to do with God's will - as unfortunately many people do. And the final events of this world are determined by God, as so many events which have already happened. To put yourself "out of God's will" is to choose eternal death. In His great love with which He loves us, the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us knowledge about these prophecies, so that we have a warning of the things to come, and so that we straighten our way, conforming it according to His way. May it not be to late for us, to see that all our striving has been useless!
One of the prophets who have suffered greater anguish was Jeremiah. The message he got from God was the most unpopular, repulsive for the Jews in his time, unpatriotic and seemingly "faithless": to surrender before Babylonia and to submit to Nebuchadnezzar! Can you imagine the effect of this "traitorous" message for the Jews, who thought that Jerusalem was untouchable and who "knew" that they, being the people of God, would be protected by Him from any invasion? Those hearing the message of the prophet didn't think that the punishment which was threatening the nation was also a part of the prophecy given since the times of Moses, and a part of the covenant of God with the Jewish nation: "if you obey Me and follow Me, you will be always victorious; if you deny Me and follow other 'gods', then you will be conquered by other nations, scattered and destroyed". However, the word that the Lord gave Jeremiah was fulfilled. Do you know why? Because it was God's purpose. Those who tormented Jeremiah surrendered to the Babylonians, but God saved the "traitorous" prophet.
There's a judgement that's coming upon this world; there's a conqueror much more cruel than Nebuchadnezzar, which will invade much more than Babylonia did; there will be also geological and climatic disasters together with the human related ones. If you trust the "human capacity", or some kind of "theology" which ignores those judgments that will shake the whole planet, let me tell you that you are living in a deplorable error and tomorrow can be to late to realize it. Those revelations we read about, from the Lord Jesus Christ, the prophets in the OT and the apostles in the NT, which they got from the Holy Spirit, those revelations are God's will. And the prophesied judgments will come upon the earth, both if we want or if we don't. As those Jews in the times of Jeremiah, we've been warned. But we have a better choice than the one they had. If we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we will be free from all this. We'll go back to this soon.
Maybe you ask yourself, why Daniel? What is that which makes him different to other prophets? What means to me a prophecy that was given thousands of years before and hasn't been fulfilled?
Most of the prophets preached before the Babylonian captivity, only three (Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi) after that, and two prophets (Daniel and Ezekiel) during the time of the captivity. Besides a few examples (Nahum, Jonah) who prophesied to pagan nations, most of the prophets spoke to Israel, and they usually called to repentance and to follow the Law of Moses, addressing a people which had abandoned it. Even Ezekiel in Babylonia, preached and prophesied to the captive Jews.
Daniel's prophecy is quite different. He was a Babylonian official, who became chief of all the wise men in Babylonia, and his contact with his countrymen (for instance his friends in chapter one) was with another believers, who were so faithful as he was. Then his prophecy goes farther, and beyond Israel's borders (even when it has to do with Israel's history and future, because he prayed for his nation and he got marvelous prophecies for Israel). The prophecy of Daniel, beyond his nation, reaches the whole world. It is not based on "turning back to the Law of Moses", because he is not talking especially to the Jews, but to gentiles who maybe didn't know who Moses was, let alone the law he received from God. It's based on Israel's God, who is the God of the whole universe, and the One who changes the course of history, not only for Israel but for the whole world. He is the One who raised Pharaohs in Egypt, and who deposed them to enthrone Persians and Greeks; the One who gave to the Greeks a huge territory from Europe and Africa to India, and let them be defeated by Rome; and the One who gave Rome it's power and splendor, and let her be defeated by the "barbarians". The prophecy of Daniel had a great impact on Babylonia. Through the book of Daniel we can see testimonies of the Babylonian and Persian kings about Israel's God. They even prescribed that Israel's God would be respected and honored by everyone (see Daniel 2:48-49; 3:28-30; 4:1-3; 5:11-12; 5:29; 6:26-27)
We can observe many spiritual gifts in Daniel through this few verses. By the gift of prophecy (gr. profetía) he declares to be able to reveal the dream's contents; by the "message of knowledge" (gr. lógos gnóseos) he declares that the wise men aren't able to declare that the king asks, and that it is God who has shown to him; and by the "message of wisdom" (gr. lógos sofías) he declares that he has got wisdom to interpret the dream to the king. There's also faith (gr. "pístis": "the mystery has been revealed to me") and humility (gr. "praótes": "not because I have greater wisdom than anyone else alive"). In his introduction to the interpretation of the dream, he begins with the same words that cost the wise men to be sentenced to death; but God gave him grace to speak and to get the attention to the end.
Receive Jesus!
Will you listen to Daniel and pay attention to him to the end, as the king did? This is our prayer and our goal when writing this, because that revelation which God gave us is for you, too. There will come times when it will be too late to escape the plagues that will strike this planet, the greatest tribulation that has ever existed. Now is the time to receive Jesus and escape from those wars, crisis, epidemics, cataclysms, and all the evil which comes upon the earth, and that will strike those who live on it on that day. For you who have not received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior so far, there's time to do it yet. Confess your sins to Him, receive his forgiveness and receive Him as your Lord and Savior! He will keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.
May the Lord bless you. In the love of Christ, your brother
Israel Leonard
PS. Jesus comes soon!
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