The Visions of Daniel
I received additional insight into the visions of Daniel during a sunday school lesson. I was listening to the teacher as he discussed the vision in Daniel 2 which saved the lives of all the magicians and astrologers of King Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar was furious with everyone because he had forgotten his dream and he wanted to know what it meant. He ordered his experts to reproduce the dream and interpret it. They tried to convince him that this was impossible.
Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that his God could reproduce and interpret the dream and begged the lives of the people who were about to be killed. God did show the dream to Daniel and gave him the interpretation. As I listened to all this, I saw that the teacher was going to run out of time while talking about Daniel 2 and not finish discussing Daniel’s other dreams or any subsequent books of the Old Testament. This led me to look at later chapters in Daniel and receive the insight I want to share with you.
The dream in Daniel 2 focuses on a “great image” or statue with a head of gold, a breast and arms of silver, a belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron and feet made of iron and clay. Then a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and collided with the statue breaking it in pieces. The statue blew away like chaff in the wind and the stone became a mountain and filled the whole earth.
In Daniel’s interpretation of the dream, Nebuchadnezzar was represented as the golden head. Other inferior kingdoms arose, as depicted by their components, which ruled the earth. Finally the kingdoms that were part iron and part clay were “partly strong and partly broken.” The stone represented a kingdom that God would set up “without hands” which would consume all kingdoms and stand forever.
The sunday school teacher mentioned an interpretation by the late prophet Spencer W Kimball about this dream. He (SWK) said, “Nebuchadnezzar represented the king of kings, a world power, representing the head of gold.
“Another kingdom would arise and take over world dominion.
“The interpretation included the domination of other kingdoms. Cyrus the great, with his Medes and Persians, would be replaced by the Greek or Macedonian kingdom under Philip and Alexander; and that world power would be replaced by the Roman Empire; and Rome would be replaced by a group of nations of Europe represented by the toes of the image.
“With the history of the world delineated in brief, now came the real revelation. Daniel said: ‘And in the days of these kings [that is, the group of European nations] 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.
‘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.” (Dan. 2:44–45.)
“This is a revelation concerning the history of the world, when one world power would supersede another until there would be numerous smaller kingdoms to share the control of the earth.
“And it was in the days of these kings that power would not be given to men, but the God of heaven would set up a kingdom—the kingdom of God upon the earth, which should never be destroyed nor left to other people.
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was restored in 1830 after numerous revelations from the divine source; and this is the kingdom, set up by the God of heaven, that would never be destroyed nor superseded, and the stone cut out of the mountain without hands that would become a great mountain and would fill the whole earth.” (Kimball, Spencer. The Stone Cut without Hands. Ensign. April 1976.)
I see similarities between the vision in Daniel Chapter 8 the one in Daniel 2. I’ve studied Daniel 8 before but never seen the correlation between it and Daniel 2. The insight I received was that just as the first dream was about an image and each part of the image corresponded to a kingdom. The dream in Daniel 8 was about the same kingdoms. Kimball said that the Babylonian kingdom was the ‘king of kings.’ and that after him the Medes and Persians would be replace by the Greeks and later the Romans. In Daniel 8, a ram had two horns. He was overpowered by a goat with one big horn. Then four little horns broke the goat and of those four, one magnified himself above the others and terrorized the saints. In verse 20, Daniel states that the ram with two horns was the kings of Media and Persia. In verse 21, Daniel states that the goat is the king of Grecia. The four little horns come next, and I guessed that they must be Romans based on what Kimball said. I don’t know Roman history well but thanks to the internet, what is known to others is available to all. The four little horns surely is the First Tetrarchy and the little horn that magnified himself and terrorized the saints was surely Diocletian and the “Great Persecution.” The phrase that convinced me that Chapter 8 and the vision of Nebuchadnezzar in Chapter 2 were the same vision was found in Daniel 8:25 where it says, “but he shall be broken without hand.” That was the way that the stone destroyed the image in Daniel 2. We know today that Christianity continued to grow despite the “Great Persecution” inflicted by Diocletian and his cohorts in AD 303. Rodney Stark in The Rise of Christianity, wrote about the meteoric rise of Christianity from .3% of the Roman population in AD 200 to 56% of the population by AD 350 and how martyrs gave credibility to the religion. Daniel foretold the efforts of a group of Roman rulers, upon seeing Christianity rise in popularity, to change the course of history and bring back a belief in the old Roman gods. Killing all Christians didn’t end Christianity, it only fanned the flame. Diocletian retired and in his place Constantinus and specifically his son Constantine ended the persecution of Christians and endorsed the religion whole-heartedly.
What is God trying to teach me by showing me this insight in the middle of a sunday school lesson? One possible answer is that God will show, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear, the meaning of his Word when you are attending sunday school. I don’t think I would have seen the correlation if the teacher had not mentioned Spencer W Kimball’s interpretation. The prophet’s insight was the key between the two chapters. Thus, God says, if you pay attention to a modern prophet, you will receive the key to additional knowledge.
I hope early Christians were able to find comfort in Daniel’s words, especially the part about the ultimate demise of Diocletian and the the triumph of the Kingdom. They certainly showed their faith by remaining true despite horrific tortures (See also Rev 6:9-11). I hope modern Christians will also find comfort in Daniel. Daniel did not act like he felt threatened by the magicians and astrologers. He saved their lives in contrast to Diocletian with the Christians. There is nothing that will prevail against the Prince of Peace. The fury and devilish pleasure derived from persecuting believers will only make them shine brighter and gain credibility with onlookers. I am convinced that the Kingdom of Heaven is on the earth today. It started out the size of a mustard seed but will someday fill the earth. Rodney Stark compares the rise of Christianity in its first hundred years with the rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He says that the growth curve is unusually similar without concluding that there is any correlation between the two religions. In reality, they are the same religion and the same Kingdom. Where early Christianity hit the dark ages and got lost, splintered and militarized, the modern Kingdom of God vis. the Church of Jesus Christ, will never be destroyed nor left to other people. God is at the helm and his prophet is his spokesperson.
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