The Revelation of Jesus Christ
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NEsucHADNEZZAa's V1s10N From the very first, God's p1an has not been obscured. The Lord was p1eased to give to Nebuchadnezzar a dream, the record of which we find in the second chapter of Danie1. He showed him an image with head of fine gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, and feet part of iron and part of clay. In his dream, Nebuchadnezzar saw a stone cut out of a mountain without hands; it fell upon the feet of the image, breaking them in pieces. When he looked again, the whole image had become like chaff of the summer threshingfloors, while the stone became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. Daniel to]d Nebuchadnezzar that the image represented Gentile domination, from its beginning to its close. The first four metals in the vision represented four empires: Babylon, the head of gold; Medo-Persia, the breast and arms of silver; Greece, the belly and thighs of brass; and Rome, the legs of iron. Of the admixture in the feet and toes, more will be said later. When the Son of God was born into the world, Rome was in power, and the prophecy represented by Nebuchadnezzar's image had been fulfilled up to that point. Then, about four hundred years after the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Roman Empire was divided into the eastern and western king doms, represented by the two legs of iron. In the eighth cen tury these were broken up; and, from the human point of view, the empire of the Cresars was forever done away. But God's decrees never fail; and faithful students of prophecy declared, in the face of ridicule, that in a yet future time, ten kingdoms would be formed on the territory of the old Roman Empire, ruled by ten kings. These ten kings will render alleg iance to the beast, until "in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom" (Dan. 2: 41). That will mean the personal, bodily, visible return of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven; for He is the smiting Stone of Nebuchad nezzar's dream. DANIEL's V1s10N In the s.eventh chapter of Daniel, we have the same events foretold, with this difference: In the second chapter, God gave
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