Daniel in Book Form

The Terror of Dreams

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Millenial Studies

Lesson: 2-12

Genre: Lecture

Track: 157

Dictation Name: RR128A2

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our scripture is from the book of Daniel the second chapter. Daniel 2. The Terror of Dreams.

Daniel 2

“2 And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him.

2 Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.

3 And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream.

4 Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation.

5 The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if ye will not make known unto me the dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill.

6 But if ye shew the dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honour: therefore shew me the dream, and the interpretation thereof.

7 They answered again and said, Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation of it.

8 The king answered and said, I know of certainty that ye would gain the time, because ye see the thing is gone from me.

9 But if ye will not make known unto me the dream, there is but one decree for you: for ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me, till the time be changed: therefore tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can shew me the interpretation thereof.

10 The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king's matter: therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean.

11 And it is a rare thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can shew it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.

12 For this cause the king was angry and very furious, and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.

13 And the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain.

14 Then Daniel answered with counsel and wisdom to Arioch the captain of the king's guard, which was gone forth to slay the wise men of Babylon:

15 He answered and said to Arioch the king's captain, Why is the decree so hasty from the king? Then Arioch made the thing known to Daniel.

16 Then Daniel went in, and desired of the king that he would give him time, and that he would shew the king the interpretation.

17 Then Daniel went to his house, and made the thing known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions:

18 That they would desire mercies of the God of heaven concerning this secret; that Daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

19 Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.

20 Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his:

21 And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding:

22 He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.

23 I thank thee, and praise thee, O thou God of my fathers, who hast given me wisdom and might, and hast made known unto me now what we desired of thee: for thou hast now made known unto us the king's matter.

24 Therefore Daniel went in unto Arioch, whom the king had ordained to destroy the wise men of Babylon: he went and said thus unto him; Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will shew unto the king the interpretation.

25 Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said thus unto him, I have found a man of the captives of Judah, that will make known unto the king the interpretation.

26 The king answered and said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, Art thou able to make known unto me the dream which I have seen, and the interpretation thereof?

27 Daniel answered in the presence of the king, and said, The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king;

28 But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these;

29 As for thee, O king, thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass.

30 But as for me, this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that I have more than any living, but for their sakes that shall make known the interpretation to the king, and that thou mightest know the thoughts of thy heart.

31 Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.

32 This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,

33 His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.

34 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 brake them to pieces.

35 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.

36 This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.

37 Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.

38 And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.

39 And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth.

40 And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.

41 And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay.

42 And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.

43 And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.

44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.

45 Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.

46 Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him.

47 The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret.

48 Then the king made Daniel a great man, and gave him many great gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon.

49 Then Daniel requested of the king, and he set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, over the affairs of the province of Babylon: but Daniel sat in the gate of the king.”

This Chapter is a very timely one in that it speaks to problems of our day and the pretentions of our age. It is hard for us to imagine the immensity and power and depth of Nebuchadnezzar. His was a vast empire which rules over the civilized world, and controlled through trade much of the world beyond his borders. The dream of his empire was to create a one world, without God. A one world paradise based upon humanistic hopes. For this reason the various conquered people were broken up and scattered throughout the empire that they might lose their racial and linguistic identities, and be merged into the peoples might ultimately become one, racial and linguistic alliance, an integrated world empire.

Nebuchadnezzar's power was total power. He could give the word and any group of people could be wiped out overnight. He could say the word and a city could be leveled to the ground. He could command it and vast cites and buildings could be erected out of nothing. His power wealth was beyond imagination. All over his position in terms of Babylonian thinking was a very profoundly religious one. In Babylonian thinking the universe was an evolving one, and the real power the real divinity in the universe was at the high point of power in history. The evolution therefore of the universe and of the divinity of the gods within the universe manifested itself in each age incarnated it's self in the highest point of power, so that the incarnation of all power in the universe was present in each age in the dominant power or person of that age. And this was the day was Nebuchadnezzar. The high point of the power in the universe.

Imagine therefore the total power of this man. The wealth, his word governed absolutely. And everything that he commanded became so. He went to bed verse 29 tells us. And his mind turned with very troubled thoughts of the future. He commanded the present but what about tomorrow? tomorrow he could be dead, and tomorrow his son or grandson or great-grandson could prove to be incompetent, and everything he worked for could crumble and disappear; and this high point of power could cease to be Nebuchadnezzar and his line, and could be someone else. After all the tower of Babble represented this dream and it was gone. Assyria represented this dream and it was gone; and perhaps Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon too could disappear. And he fell asleep.

A man with such total power can when he was awake say the word and the whole world is moved at his word. But let him go to sleep and he is no longer in command. And this is what Nebuchadnezzar faced. The terror of dreams and in his dreams all the uncertainty that this world does represent for humanistic pretensions came to the full. And his dreams filled him with terror, with absolute terror with the knowledge that he was here today and gone tomorrow and all his dreams would crumble. And when he awoke he turned with hatred on all the wise men, his brain trust, the scientist the religious practitioners and priests, the astrologers. All of them. They who day by day assured him of great how marvelous his power was, and he summoned them. And the hatred, the anger he felt with his frustration and the terror of his dream he took out on them, and he said: "I dreamed a dream, tell me what I dreamed, and what the interpretation of it is." and they said, like any psychoanalyst would say today, “Tell me your dream and I will give you the interpretation thereof.” And Nebuchadnezzar declared, "The thing is gone from me, that is the matter has been fully determined by. You are going to tell me what I dreamed as well as the interpretation."

The frustration Nebuchadnezzar felt and his impotence he now vented upon these men. "If you will not tell me the dream and the interpretation thereof ye shall all die" what good is a brain trust? What good is a dream of an empire, a one world paradise, if when I go to sleep a nightmarish terror can overwhelm me? If the threat of death of my dreams and myself and my empire can overwhelm. If I am to die then you too are going to die. If you do not tell me then you shall perish."

At this point they talked back to him. After all they'd been sentenced to death, so it was safe, they couldn't lose anymore. “It is a rare thing, an unreasonable thing that the king requireth, and there is none other that can showeth before the king except the Gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.” The order went out and the word reached Daniel. Daniel and his friends were also included in the death sentence. This was the first they'd heard of it. Daniel told the captain of the guards who was to do the executing that he wanted permission from the king for another day so he could give him the dream and the interpretation of the dream thereof. The permission was granted and Daniel asked his three friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, to be in earnest prayer with him that God would grant him the interpretation, that he and his fellows should not perish.

We can go to God with such requests for our survival and that's exactly what Daniel had in mind. He had no desire to die, and they prayed very earnestly to God; and Daniel in a vision was given the dream and the interpretation thereof, and he went to the king, to Nebuchadnezzar. And he spoke to him, and he told Nebuchadnezzar: "Thy thoughts came into thy mind upon thy bed what should come to pass here after. You went to sleep that night brooding about what should come to pass in the future. And he that revealeth secrets maketh known to thee what shall come to pass. And I myself,” Daniel said, “have no wisdom any more than any living. But it is the grace of God and His revelation that I make known to thee the thoughts of thy heart and the interpretation. Your dream oh king, was of a great image who's brightness was excellent and who's form towering over the earth was terrifying. And the head of the image was of fine gold his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, and his legs of iron and his feet of part of iron and part of clay. And as you saw this fearful and this terrifying image dominating the whole earth, you saw stone, a rock, cut without hands, rise and smite the image and shatter it. Shatter it to dust. So that it became as the chaff of the summer threshing floor and the wind carried them away, and no place was found for it. And this stone this rock grew and grew and became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This is the dream. And we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. This image, this grave figure,” said Daniel: “represents mans' dream, mans' dream of a one world without God. a great one world paradise, and if God is at all included in these humanistic pretensions of man, it is merely that God is at best on the side lines, a sweet soul who gives everybody a prize and is there to pat the winner on the back. History is dominated by man.”

“This dream, this dream of a one world paradise without God is shared by four great empires. You oh Nebuchadnezzar are that head of gold. You represent the epitome, the greatness, the humanistic splendor of this dream. The finest manifestation of it. Humanistically speaking. And your empire Babylon represents the highest, the finest, maturest development of this attempt to create this human paradise without God. But you shall be followed by another empire, which by comparison is silver.” And subsequently the identity of this empire is made known. The medo-Persian empire. “And then a third empire shall arise, comparable to brass in relation to the other two.”

And again later the identity is revealed to be the Macedonian empire of Alexander the great. Who like his fore-bears this one world order and set out to make it real moved eastward, made even India or segments, vast segments parts of this empire. Took his men and merchants with him, his soldiers, and had mass marriages so there would be a mixture of east and west. One world integration, a one world language and legend, Greek for centuries to come, as the language of business for the civilized world and even beyond and it left its impact even to this day in that the language of the new testament is Greek the business Greek of the civilized world. Moreover he dreamed of a one world religion and himself as the sun of the Gods.

“And this gave way to a fourth empire finally of mixed iron and clay.” And this later is identified as the Roman Empire. Whose principle of unity for this one world order was Roman law, one law for all peoples and nations and all them that find themselves in terms of Roman law. But God declared in this vision, this humanistic vision which has this head of gold and all these fine dreams and pretensions, has basically feet of clay. And even as iron and clay cannot mix, and even as the statue though it's head be of gold is very shaky to say the least if it's feet are of clay; with all the gold and the silver and the iron, are carried on feet of brittle clay.

So in this dream of a one world order without God. Iron and clay cannot mix no more man to man without Christ. And so this splendid and terrifying image has feet of clay and it is from this image that we get the expression feet of clay.

The Fifth Empire is the last. A stone not made of made of hands or a rock not made of hands, the rock of ages Jesus Christ, the image of a stone cut without hands is a familiar one throughout the Old Testament whenever and wherever the Hebrew worshiped as they made their wilderness journey, their alter was to be a natural rock, a rock not made of hands; to symbolize something they did not make, but God gave. Jesus Christ which was their alter. And thus the rock that was to destroy this one world order is Jesus Christ who grows and grows and grows until he covers the earth.

This is the great fifth monarchy. We are fifth monarchy man. Citizens of the fifth monarchy which shall overcome the world. The dream of these empires was that they were going to control history. And the dream of the empire today of the one world order is that they shall govern and control history but what this vision portrayed was God as the determiner of all things. The purpose of these empires of this one world dream was that man is to regain paradise to reestablish paradise on earth, without God.

The fifth monarchy shall indeed usher in paradise but it is the by-product. because the goal of Christ and his coming and the goal of the fifth monarchy is not to fulfill the not to fulfill the desires of man's heart as man dreams of a paradise but to reestablish communion with God. Man was in communion with God in paradise and this is what made the Garden of Eden paradise, because there was unbroken communion between God and man. And man by his sin destroyed that communion; and Jesus Christ came as the representative man to keep Gods law perfectly and as the innocent one, the unblemished lamb of God to make atonement for man's sins. As the representative man, to keep Gods law perfectly, and as the innocent the unblemished Lamb of God could make atonement for mans sins and by his atoning death on the cross and by his resurrection, Jesus Christ re-established communion with God. And this reestablished communion is that which we celebrate in the sacrament of the Lords table. This is what we declare every time we pray in "In Jesus name", the communion has been re-established. And because it has been re-established we have the promise of paradise regained. And the byproduct from the fifth monarchy shall re-gain the whole world. This is the meaning of the vision of Nebuchadnezzar.

The humanists and their one world order find themselves with a terror of dreams. So that even as they come close and closer they believe to the realization of their dreams they seek escape from this terror that haunts them more and more. Alcoholism and narcotics and sleeping tablets and LSD and Marijuana and everything to escape from themselves. Because their every moment is haunted and their sleep tortured by the raging terror the knowledge that history is not in their hands and the government is not upon their shoulders for the government is upon "his" shoulders, who is the everlasting father, the prince of peace.

Nebuchadnezzar when he heard the interpretation having been filled with the terror of dreams was so overwhelmed to know that there was meaning to his dream beyond terror, fell down and worshipped Daniel. And he made him ruler over the whole province and chief of governors over all the wise men of Babylon. His relief was great but there was yet no real faith. He had momentarily evaded the problem. He had not yet answered it. The cross he escaped from the terror of dreams through Jesus Christ as our redeemer, there is the blessed assurance. That we can take hands off our lives and commit them into his keeping. That we who cannot predestine our tomorrow that they are in God's hands who doeth all things well. Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly father, we thank thee that we can commit ourselves into thy keeping. We cast our every care upon thee. Knowing thou carest for us. Give us grace therefore our father day by day. to walk by faith to walk in the blessed assurance that thou Lord are very near and thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us we thank thee our father that our tomorrows are not determined by the conspiracies of men but by thine omnipotence and that he who governs all things is our Lord and our Redeemer. Our God we thank thee in Jesus name Amen.

Are there any questions now?