cerned and afraid. This reminds us of the fact that power and wealth don’t in themselves produce peace of mind. Laxity and luxury aren’t conducive to tranquility. The man of the world has his portion in this life only. Assets actually become burdens. Whenever the scope of an Old Testament prophecy is measured by the words, “the latter days,” either in the Hebrew or Aramaic, the times of Messiah are always within the scope of that prophecy. We find this expression in Genesis 49:1, Deuter onomy 4:30; 31:29; Numbers 24: 14; Isaiah 2:2; Jeremiah 23:20 and many others. N ebuchadnezzar’s dream and its interpretation con tain a prophecy of the course of the nation of Israel until the second coming of the Messiah to set up His final kingdom. In Luke 21:24, Jesus speaks of “the times of the Gen tiles.” This expression isn’t found in Daniel; it was used only by our Lord. Don’t confuse “the times of the Gentiles” with “the fullness of the Gentiles” (Rom. 11:25). These two don’t mean the same thing. The fullness of the Gentiles ends with the removal of the Church from the earth to Heaven by our Lord before the Tribulation. The true Church will consist mainly of saved Gentiles, as well as all saved Jews during this dispensation. When the Church is removed from the earth, Jewish his tory will be resumed. The times of the Gentiles commenced with the Babylonian captivity under Nebu chadnezzar. They will conclude when Christ returns to the earth after the Tribulation to set up His millennial kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar awoke from sleep in a spirit of agitation and nervous ness. He summoned the magicians, enchanters, and sorcerers (v. 12). This made up the entire university of scholarly experts. Instead of tell ing them what the dream was all about, he insisted they tell him what 9
ment and decline of world powers through the rise and fall of king doms and empires. In the conquest of Judah by Babylon there was in troduced the first major Gentile world power. What was Israel’s fu ture? Did the destruction of Jeru salem and the deportation of the people seal the finality of that chosen nation ? God would now declare Him self as to this relationship. We pause to say just a few words on the subject of dreams. A dream is a vision in sleep to be distin guished from a vision when one is awake. Evil men who give their minds over to vile imaginations and sinful practices are spoken of by Jude as “filthy dreamers” (Jude 8). Then there are dreams which occur in sleep, the stimuli of which can either be physical or mental. Each of us has had his night’s sleep dis turbed at some time by a dream. Yet the dreams spoken of in Daniel’s prophecy are different from those we experience. In ancient times God had said, “If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream” (Num. 12:6). We see a similar truth stated in Job 33:14ff. This was the Lord’s silent revelation to men through a method chosen for reasons known only to Himself. Such meth ods were used before the written revelation of God, the Bible, was completely given. This is not true today. We have the Scriptures for our guidance. Dreams in our day are not the result of inspiration but rather of physical, emotional, or psy chological causes. Let us look at the actual text. With the overthrow of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar was elevated to the lofty position of the world’s greatest ruler. Yet, his conquest didn’t bring him peace of mind. He was trou bled about the future, of his empire. This was the cause of his dream which made him all the more con
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