Good Morning!
Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and broke them to pieces.
Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold,
broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the
summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them:
and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth (Daniel 2:34-35).
The Stone. Daniel is interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's dream to him. I've been encouraging folks to memorize the numbers: 2—7—13—17. This morning as I was reading the Daniel chapters again, I realized I had left out chapter 9. My apology! Oh well, it won't be hard to stretch the numbers to: 2—7—9—13—17. That's Daniel 2-7-9 and Revelation 13-17. That's the combination to unlock the blueprint of history from the days of Nebuchadnezzar until The Christ returns to earth to set up His kingdom in Jerusalem upon the throne of His father, David. That is the coming of the Stone.
I like to use Nebuchadnezzar's image as my reference point in thinking about the four world kingdoms. When Jesus and the apostles were walking on the earth, the Roman Empire was in its iron legs of absolute power. But the Roman Empire fell in on itself and disappeared from sight. Rome is now coming out of its dormant state and reshaping itself around the Mediterranean Sea as it did before. But the Roman Empire will never again be on iron legs. It will now become the feet and toes made of iron and clay.
Then will come the stone as described in the verses above. I hope you enjoyed reviewing the pictures I sent yesterday of the European Union now taking place. It is going to quietly become the most powerful government structure in the world and it looks like it is now moving at a fast pace. But it will endure only a few years because The stone is coming to completely destroy it.
Jesus made it clear that He is that Stone. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder (Matthew 21:44).
The psalmist had already declared Him to be the one who would demolish the kings who resisted Him: The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying: Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision (Psalm 2:2-4).
The final result for the rebellious kings is: Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel (Psalm 2:9).
This is surprising news for people today who have decided that Jesus was limited to telling stories and holding little children in his lap. Indeed He is that. But He is also the mighty God.
If you fall upon that stone—if you come just as you are and cast yourself upon Him without one plea except that His blood was shed for you—then you are broken upon that stone. You come by faith and rest upon Him as the rock of your salvation. But if you will not be broken upon that stone, then there will come a day in which that stone will fall upon you and you will be ground to powder just as Nebuchadnezzar's image was ground to powder by the stone as it fell upon its feet and was ground to powder as we find in Matthew 21:44 above.
Memory Verse for this week:
Deuteronomy 4:9 Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the
things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life:
but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons;
Digging Deeper We are still remembering that before the Gutenberg Press (pictured at left) no one had printed books; did not have a Bible or Bible portion except what was printed by hand. Even so, God commanded His people to hide His word in their hearts. It wasn't just hiding His word in their heads, but in their hearts. Nothing has changed. Today God still commands us to hide His word in our hearts and to use it to measure and define mankind in general and especially to measure and define ourselves.
The Bible and Darwin's evolution are incompatible. Either we accept the Bible by faith, believing that we have great evidence for believing it, or we accept Darwin's ideas of an evolution that came out of what is now called the: "Big Bang". It is called the "Big Bang" because math geniuses like Albert Einstein forced the other scientists to accept the fact that the universe is running down from a higher state of energy. Instead of calling the higher state "creation," they chose to call it a "Big Bang!" An explosion of unknown causes. That was easier for them than believing there is a living God who made everything.
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