Good Morning! - Daniel 2:34.35 - The Stone.Part 3 - 2009.12.04

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).

 

This drawing of Nebuchadnezzar reminds us of his dream: the great image and the stone.  We've looked at Jesus' statement that everyone who falls upon the Stone will be broken but upon whomsoever the Stone falls, it will grind him to powder (Matthew 21:44).  It's hard for most people to believe that. It's hard to even notice that. Either you come to that Stone and fall upon it or it is going to come to you and grind you to powder. I had much rather run to the Stone and say: "Oh please break me!" That is my personal testimony from years ago and not merely a figure of speech. All that I am and ever hope to be stems from my falling upon the Stone. One of my favorite hymns is "Rock of Ages, cleft for me; let me hide myself in Thee."

The Stone is one of many figures of speech in the Bible that speak of Christ in his role of Savior and Judge. The Stone is coming back to this earth to put down the awesome rebellion against Him by the human race. The whole of mankind, especially the upper crust of philosophers, educators, and politicians are determined to organize the earth's population into a wonderful utopia of happiness and productivity, all of it without God. The Humanist Manifesto II of 1973 asserted: "No deity will save us. We must save ourselves."  So, the Stone is coming. It is presented in detail in Revelation 19:11-21. There is not enough room for that passage here. I hope you will read it today and many times thereafter. 

 

Jesus taught us to pray: Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10). In your heart of hearts, have you understood what you were praying? Have you understood that He was not mincing words or playing with your mind?  Have you understood that a literal kingdom of Christ is coming on this earth in keeping with the 2^nd Chapter of Daniel and many other prophecies?

 

The Stone appears in: Zechariah 14:1-3; —  in Joel 3:2,  9-16;  —  in Isaiah 34:1-8, and Psalm 2.  The action of the verses is testimony enough that it is the Stone at work. I urge you to look up all these passages and mark them in your Bible. Write them on cards and work at memorizing them.

 

And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ (1Corinthians 10:4).

 

Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel (Exodus 17:6). When Jesus died on the cross, He was smitten of God and crushed.

 

Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink (Numbers 20:8). The rock at this point has already been smitten or struck. Once was enough. We may now come to the Rock and speak to Him and out of Him will come living water and we may partake of it. Moses had a temper tantrum and disobeyed God in striking the rock instead of speaking to it. For that sin, he was forbidden to enter into the Promised Land. That was not a picture of losing one's salvation but a picture of losing position and rewards for disobeying God.

 

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  

 

Forgetting occurs when new things cover over the more recent things. Oh, it's still there. The experts say we never forget anything. We tend to forget the painful things. We also forget the things we don't use. I can remember my Grandpa Carr fairly well and yet his grave stone shows that he died a 2-3 months before my fourth birthday. As I have revisited my early childhood by trying to remember, things have surfaced that I had forgotten. The more I think about them, the more they seem like they are fresh memories. Strange how that works. With God, we have to be diligent in remembering the things we have seen that came from the hand of God. And we have to be careful about letting go the things in our hearts that used to control our thinking and planning. Moses got it right when he warned us to work at remembering the good things, the things of God in our lives.

To be removed from this mailing list, please click here. In the subject line type "remove."  ●To subscribe to this and other Encourager mailings, click here. In the subject line, type "subscribe." Please give your name and email address. ●Please set your spam system (contact list) to accept encourager@biblewalking.com. and  dan@dancarr.org.   ●Thank you for accepting our mail and passing it on. Picture: http://karenswhimsy.com/public-domain-images/babylonians/images/babylonians-4.jpg