Drawing Connections
The message of Revelation was originally addressed to the Christians of the 1st century, in John's time - and we are talking about John the apostle. Of course the message is timeless, and as important throughout the centuries, as well as today. The text in Revelation was written using the imagery and symbols the Christians from the 1st century were familiar with. We need to keep this in mind, because this idea is one of the keys to interpret the book.
Closer Look
*** Background ***: John was one of the original disciples of Jesus. He received the vision of this message when he was in exile, in the island of Patmos. Just so we can understand a little better in what point in history Revelation was written, we need to go even further back in time, to the book of Daniel.
Like Revelation, the book of Daniel is also a prophetic book, full of symbols, and it covers some of the same prophecies that we see in Revelation. Daniel also received several visions while he was living in exile, but Daniel was in Babylon.
*** Biblical View ***: Today, we will revisit the dream that Babylon’s King had one night. The name of this king was Nebuchadnezzar. This dream will help us understand the scope of the timeline covered by biblical prophecies. You will find this story on chapter 2 of the book of Daniel.
The Israelites had been taken captives to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar around the year 606-605 BC. You can see that the story of Daniel happened over 600 years before John came along. Daniel was among those captives that had been brought to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar wasn’t one to waste good talent, not even when it came to his captives. He preferred to to use the brightest and most prominent people to help strengthen his own kingdom even further. That’s why some of the young Israelite men were chosen to be instructed in Babylonian culture. And so, Daniel and his friends were sent to what I call "Babylon University", and eventually they ended up working as advisors to the King.
One night, Nebuchadnezzar was in his bed, getting ready to go to sleep. He was worried, thinking about the future. That night, the King had a prophetic dream. As it turns out, only Daniel was able to interpret this dream through God's power. God had sent the king a dream about how the history of the world would unfold. It was a message about the kingdoms of this world, starting with Babylon and ending with the Second Coming of Christ. In the book of Daniel, we see the names of some of these kingdoms and the order in which they appear. Our advantage is that we can look into our history books and see which kingdoms came after Nebuchadnezzar's. It is not surprising though that Daniel described the kingdoms that came after Babylon in the exact order they ended up happening.
In the dream, God used images and symbols that were familiar to Nebuchadnezzar. Something that would make sense to this king. In the dream, there was a statue, with the head of gold, chest of silver, middle and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet and toes of iron mixed with clay. Every part of the statue represented a different kingdom. At the end of the dream, came a rock that hit the statue’s feet and completely destroyed the entire statue. Nothing was left of it. The rock then grew and became a mountain that filled the Earth. This rock represents the eternal kingdom that God will establish one Day.
*** Prophetic Application ***: In order, we have the following kingdoms or empires represented here in the statue:
| Material of the Symbol | Prophetic Meaning |
| Head of Gold | Neo-Babylonian Empire (Daniel 2:36-38), which lasted from 605 - 539 BC |
| Chest of Silver | Medo-Persian Empire (Daniel 2:39; see also Daniel 8:21), which lasted from 539 - 331 BC |
| Middle and Thigh of Brass (or Bronze) | Greek Empire (Daniel 2:39; see also Daniel 8:21), which lasted from 331-168 BC |
| Legs of Iron | Roman Empire, or Rome (Daniel 2:40), which lasted from 168 BC / 27BC - 476 AD |
| Feet and Toes of Clay mixed with Iron | Divided nations (Daniel 2:40-43), this period started in 476 AD, but 538 AD marked the rise of the Christian Church as a dominant power over the divided kingdoms of Europe. This phase is going to last until the End of Time, when Jesus comes back as the Great Rock that destroys all the human forms of government to establish His Eternal Kingdom |
John was alive in the 1st century, which places him less than 200 years into the Roman Empire. From the head to the legs of the statue we have kingdoms of world-wide domination. Then we get to the feet, and no longer we see a kingdom powerful enough to dominate the whole world. Now there are several divided nations - the different countries of the world. That's where you and I find ourselves at the moment. We live today in the time of the feet and toes made of iron and clay, right before the return of Christ.
Overview
Both Daniel and John wrote about what would happen in the future from their point of view - in other words, from the point in history where they were. They both described events in this same prophetic timeline that God had revealed. That's why we see some of the same prophecies being described in Daniel and in Revelation. Now you can see how the books of Daniel and Revelation are books about kingdoms, powers, and systems. Revelation is not a book about one specific human being who wants worldwide domination. These prophetic books show the bigger picture of how the timeline is progressing and will continue to progress until Jesus returns. God revealed this information to us not just to satisfy our curiosity, and definitely not to makes us afraid, but so that we could trust that, with God, we can have victory in the end.
Statue in Daniel 2
Please see this picture of the statue and extra details at the Amazing Discoveries website
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Episode 3
YouTube video with this study
Episódio 3
Vídeo do estudo no YouTube
