The Rise and Fall of the World, Part 1 B

Four world empires from Nebuchadnezzar to Jesus Christ. No longer is Jerusalem under Israel's rule to be the center of God's dealing with men, and four great world powers will exist until Christ comes and restores Israel. One scholar set out to describe the course that all democratic governments take. First, the citizens move from bondage to spiritual faith, then from faith to courage, from courage to liberty, and from liberty to abundance.

That sounds good, but then comes the bad news. They then move from abundance to selfishness, to complacency, to dependency, and then back to bondage again. That certainly sounds like the downward spiral we see right now in many nations. Which raises the question, could the strong countries of the world fall by the wayside?

Could they ever experience a collapse similar to that of ancient Greece or Rome? Those issues come to light in John MacArthur's current study here on Grace to You. It's a look at key prophecies from the book of Daniel, titled The Rise and Fall of World Powers.

And now with a lesson, here's John. Daniel chapter 2. In the first 31 verses of Daniel 2, we have the dream received. The dream received in the first 31 verses...or first 30 verses. Then in 31, the dream recalled. And from the dream received and the dream recalled, we come thirdly to the dream revealed, verse 36. And just so you don't miss it, verse 36 is explicit. This is the dream, I've just given that, and we will tell its interpretation before the King.

Now I gave you the dream, here comes the interpretation. What amazes me is Nebuchadnezzar never says anything in this whole deal. He never says a word. He doesn't say, well, you're right, that's it, you got it. Or he doesn't say, no, that's wrong. He doesn't say anything, you know. I think he couldn't say anything.

I think his mouth was hanging open. Because Daniel was right. As the end of the story in chapter 2 will tell us, Daniel was right when he makes him prime minister of the whole area.

But he says, look at this little thought. Verse 36, we will tell its interpretation. Who is the we? Some people say it's Daniel and his three friends who prayed together about this and with whom he shared the dream. Some say it's Daniel and God. And commentators argue back and forth about that.

I don't have any problem. I think it's God and his three friends. They were all in on it.

We asked to include anybody who knew about it. And we're going to tell you the interpretation. And here it comes.

Watch this. Thou, O king, art a king of kings, for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom power and strength and glory. And wherever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heavens hath He given into thine hand and hath made thee ruler over them all, thou art this head of gold.

That's you. And after thee shall arise another kingdom...the authorized says inferior, we'll talk about that word in a little while...to thee and another third kingdom of bronze which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron for as much as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things. And as iron that breaketh all these, it shall break in pieces and bruise. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes part of potter's clay and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided, but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron for as much as thou sawest the iron mixed with the miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle.

And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men, but they shall not adhere one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay." Now we'll stop right there. Now you say, well that didn't help a whole lot.

It will if you just concentrate for a minute. This is phenomenal. The image represents, mark it, four world empires in succeeding stages from Nebuchadnezzar to Jesus Christ. Israel is no longer God's leading nation, no longer the rulers of that part of the world, no longer is Jerusalem under Israel's rule to be the center of God's dealing with men. And four great world powers will exist until Christ comes and restores Israel.

Let's meet the first one. Verse 37, Thou, O king, art a king of kings, for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom power of strength and glory. And wherever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heavens hath He given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all, thou art this head of gold. Now you'll notice that Nebuchadnezzar is addressed in verse 37 as a king of kings, a title that was given to him by God. Notice that.

Isn't that interesting? For the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom power of strength and glory. The powers that be, says Paul in Romans 13, are ordained, what?

By God. Acts 17, Paul says, God has set the nations up and determined their boundaries. God is in the business of ruling over kings and nations. And God granted to thee the power, the kingdom, the strength and the glory. Thou art a king of kings.

In other words, the supreme monarch in the earth. By the way, in Ezekiel chapter 26 and verse 7, Ezekiel calls him the same thing. So Ezekiel got from the Lord the very same message. Nebuchadnezzar was a unique king. By the way, his kingdom lasted 70 years, the exact number of years that God wanted to chasten Israel in the Babylonian captivity before He sent them back. God raised up Nebuchadnezzar. God raised up His kingdom to be a chastening agent.

And when their chastening work was done, they passed out of existence. And so the God of heaven granted him His kingdom. Now His kingdom spread over the important portion of the world of His day, from all the way down into Egypt, around the Mediterranean area, clear to the Persian Gulf. All of that part of the world was under the dominion of this man. He was a supreme monarch. He was the king of the kings of his day. He ruled over everything and everybody. And as I said, the idea that it extended over the beasts and the birds is simply a hyperbole to show the tremendous degree and extent of his authority.

So far as any man of his time, Nebuchadnezzar had gone beyond them in his power and his authority. Subsequent kingdoms to him, note this, are identified as kingdoms, not as kings. In the four world empires, it says Nebuchadnezzar is the head. From then on, no monarch is ever mentioned. It passes from a king to kingdoms. The second kingdom, the third kingdom, and the fourth kingdom. But the first time it is a king.

Why? Because the first one was the only real, single, united, absolute monarchy. The rest of the image, there's a change in the way the rule is rendered. Nebuchadnezzar was a king of kings who literally, personally, uniquely was responsible for attaining and maintaining his status and the status of his empire. And after him, the power rapidly diminished. It was far more his kingdom than he was its king, says Leon Wood.

And he's right. The same is not true of the succeeding empires. Now let me tell you something else that's very interesting. You'll notice that it says the head is the head of gold. Why gold? Well, gold was big in the Babylonian empire. Herodotus, who is a historian, visited Babylon 90 years.

He's an ancient historian. Visited Babylon 90 years after the era of Nebuchadnezzar. And Herodotus has written that never in his life on the earth did he see such an abundance and proliferation of gold as he saw in Babylon. He describes the chapels and the vessels and the accoutrements and the embellishments made of solid gold all over the Babylonian empire 90 years after the era of Nebuchadnezzar, the residual was still there. Nebuchadnezzar wanted to build a golden throne in the midst of a golden city. Isaiah 14.4 refers to Nebuchadnezzar's preoccupation with gold. But it lasted only 70 years, just long enough to fulfill God's chastening purpose. So Nebuchadnezzar was the head of gold. Great solidarity because it was a one-man rule.

He called all the shots. Look at verse 39. The second kingdom follows. And after these shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee. And then another third kingdom of bronze which shall bear rule over all the earth. Let's look at that second kingdom for a minute. It tells us back in verse 32 that its arms were of silver. So the second kingdom is represented by silver. And you'll notice that as you come down, you come down to the breasts and the arms, right?

It's arms of silver, the breasts and arms. And now no longer do you have the solidarity of the head, you have a two-part situation. And the second one in verse 39 can only refer to the Medo-Persian Empire. It has to refer to the Medo-Persian Empire because the Medo-Persian Empire succeeded Babylonia.

There's no other way you can interpret it. Commentators agree that it's the Medo-Persian Empire because it followed immediately after Babylon. Its breasts and arms, according to verse 32, were of silver. And it implies a two-fold division. And the Medo-Persian Empire was just that, made up of the Medes and the Persians. No longer is there solidarity there and also you will note that the metal is not as valuable.

It is silver. Notice the word inferior in verse 39. After these shall arise another kingdom inferior...literally and I want you to stick with me on this, the word means lower. I don't think the inferior is the right translation.

I don't think we ought to make a qualitative or a value judgment on it. I think he's simply saying lower and then lower and then lower. That is the literal Aramaic reference. He's simply talking about lower down the statue.

You start with gold and lower you come to silver. It's not really a commentary on quality or size or anything. By the way, the last three empires were larger by far. In fact, they get larger as they go. Medo-Persia was larger than Babylon. Greece was larger than Medo-Persia and Rome was larger than Greece.

They get continuously larger. Not only that, each of them was stronger than the one before. So to say inferior is really not the best thing to say.

They weren't inferior in size and they weren't inferior in power. It's better to see it as simply the meaning of the word is lower since there was a growth of power and a growth of territory. Now it's always interested me in verse 39 that it simply says, And after these shall arise another kingdom lower...lower from thee, or lower than thee, down the image. It says nothing about it. Of all the four kingdoms, this is the one it says nothing about. The next one it says it will bear rule over all the earth. He says nothing about the second one.

Why? Well I think he didn't want to make Nebuchadnezzar paranoid, worried about what this one was going to be and who it was going to be and where it was going to come from because this is the one that would topple his empire. And so it's passed rather rapidly. But we know that it refers to the Medo-Persian empire. Now silver in Aramaic is the same as money, same word. The characteristic of this Medo-Persian empire would be money or silver.

And history bears this out. The Medo-Persian empire developed a vast system of taxation. They required that their taxes be paid in silver and they literally filled their coffers with tons and tons of silver. The kings of the Medo-Persian empire, and there were many of them, just gobbled up silver money.

The prophecy here then is that there would come another kingdom and that kingdom would be characterized by silver. Xerxes, who was one of the kings of the Medo-Persian empire, inherited the incredible silver fortune of his father, Darius. He also inherited more silver from other Persian kings and he used it to finance his massive war against the Greeks.

So they had a tremendous amount of silver. The Babylonian empire made it until 538 B.C. And then came Cyrus the Great and with Cyrus the Great came the Medo-Persian empire.

That empire lasted 200 years, about until 330 B.C. when you come to the third one in verse 39 and look at it. And another third kingdom of bronze which shall bear rule over all the earth.

And what is it? Back to verse 32. It's the belly and thighs of bronze. Now you come down to another kingdom of bronze, the belly and the thighs. This is Greece.

How do we know that? Because following the Medo-Persian kingdom came the Greek empire under Alexander the Great who received the power and the authority initially from his father, Philip of Macedon. So moving down Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece. It's interesting that Greece descends to the thighs because the great Greek empire primarily had two major facets.

And although it was divided among four generals, two of those generals took Syria and two of them took Egypt and they became the two facets of the great Greek empire. Now I want you to notice that this kingdom is characterized by bronze. Bronze is not as valuable as silver, but bronze is stronger than silver.

It's characterized by bronze I think for other reasons. One writer says this, it is easy to imagine what an astonishing impression the Greeks must have made on a civilized world. Consider the contrast between their soldiers and the soldiers of the Persian army. They knocked off the Medo-Persian empire. Had you seen a soldier of Media or Persia in the days when they controlled the civilized world, he would have looked like this. Here's what a Medo-Persian soldier looked like. On his head would have been a soft turban.

He would have been clothed with a tunic with sleeves and trousers full and long. That would have been a Medo-Persian soldier. But when you saw a Greek soldier, he would have had on his head a helmet of brass, on his body a breastplate of brass, before he would be carrying a shield of brass, and believe it or not, a sword made out of brass.

That is why the classic writers of ancient days refer to the brazen coated Greeks. Brass became a sign and symbol of Greek conquest in the Greek empire. Gold, why? Because Nebuchadnezzar was preoccupied with gold. Silver, why? Because the Medes and the Persians were preoccupied with silver.

Brass, why? Because it symbolized the power of the forces of Alexander the Great. And again, that empire splits into two thighs, Syria and Egypt again, and still separated when we come to the fourth and final kingdom in verse 40, the legs of iron. By the way, may I add the end of verse 39, it says that this third kingdom would bear rule over all the earth.

Hang on to that. Bear rule over all the earth. Alexander the Great, this is amazing, he ruled Europe, he ruled Egypt, and he ruled all the way to India.

And died in his thirties. Finally come to the fourth kingdom, and that is Rome. How do we know that? Because Rome follows Greece in history.

And the stress again is on strength. The Greek empire lasted only a little under 200 years. The Medo-Persian empire lasted about the same amount of time, somewhere near 100 B.C., give or take 50 years.

It's really hard to say exactly when it started. Rome became a power. And by the way, Rome was never even heard of before that. They emerged out of nowhere to rule the world. And the Roman empire, believe it or not, even went further than Alexander's conquests.

Incredible. Rome was two legs. You know that Rome existed in a divided state, didn't it?

It was the eastern Roman empire and the western Roman empire. Now, Daniel says, and we're going to hasten to a conclusion, that the fourth kingdom, verse 40, shall be strong as iron. Strong as iron.

By the way, in Daniel's day, iron was believed to be the strongest metal. And Rome, no question, was the strongest empire the world has ever known. Babylon lasted 70 years. Medo-Persia lasted around 200. The Greek empire lasted around 200. The Roman empire lasted 500 years in the west and all the way to 1453 until Constantinople was knocked off in the east. That's a long time.

No empire even comes close. They were strong. He goes on to say, for example, it breaketh in pieces. It subdues. He says it breaketh all these.

It breaks in pieces and it bruises. All of those terms refer to a smashing, crushing, shattering power of Rome. In fact, the verb breaketh in the Aramaic means to crush with a hammer. And Lupo, the Bible scholar says, quote, the Roman legions were noted for their ability to crush all resistance with an iron heel. There's apparently little that is constructive in the program of this empire in spite of Roman law and Roman roads and civilization because the destructive work outweighed all else for we have the double verb crush and demolish at the end of verse 40. The Roman empire came to crush and demolish. By the way, the legs are the longest part of the image and the Roman empire lasted the longest. Gibbon who wrote the famous Fall of the Roman Empire said this, the empire of the Romans filled the world and when the empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies.

To resist was fatal and it was impossible to fly, end quote. Gibbon says the Romans ruled the world. You know why the Romans lasted so long? Because they ruled with an iron rod.

They were strong. The iron legions of Rome were the final world power in the image. Now as you can see, folks, Rome is the last world empire.

They say, wait a minute, there's got to be more to this. Rome passed away a long time ago. Oh, but there's more to the prophecy. You haven't gotten to the toes yet. And the toes are not iron, but iron mixed with what?

Clay. What does that tell us? You know what I believe it tells us? I believe that we're going to see a return of the ancient Roman Empire. Robert Culver writes, two millennia ago Rome gave the world the ecumenical unity that the League of Nations and the United Nations organizations have sought to revive in our time. But are the revivals of the ancient Roman ideal that never since the time of Augustus Caesar has been wholly lost? It is probable that the Pax Romana, the Roman peace, the peace of a well-ordered prison with plenty of iron gates, steel doors, trained guards and high walls is still the best the world will ever achieve until Jesus comes. The history of the world is reaching its climax. There's no question about that. Listen, can America survive?

Can they? We're succumbing, listen, we're succumbing already to the deadly, inexorable, inevitable, unchangeable deterioration of man. Our people are selfish and their selfishness will self-destruct. Alexander Tyler said it, from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy.

We're somewhere in there right now. Then from apathy to dependence, and we're asking for that, from dependency back to bondage. And somebody else will rise from our ashes and start the cycle all over again. How will it end?

That's for next time. Let's pray. Father, thank You again for our fascinating truth that Your Word reveals.

Bless every heart here. O Lord, we think of the words of blessed Peter who said, seeing that You know all these things shall come to pass, what manner of persons ought You to be? If we know that history is winding down, that the image of man's dominion in the world is a precarious image, balanced on feet of clay, top heavy, to be crushed and smashed by a stone cut out without hands, to blow away as dust, O God, we would not be a part of that system.

We would not want to be a part of what shall fail and die. We want to be a part of the living kingdom of Jesus Christ. And so, Lord, we would pray for those tonight who might not know Christ, that they might step out of the deteriorating process of sin where the gold of man is turning to dust and into the kingdom of God where he takes the dust that we are and turns it into gold. Touch each heart, Father, with how we should respond. Give us a sense of urgency to reach the multitudes around us who are caught in this terrible cycle. May we be able to touch their lives for Christ. In whose name we pray, amen. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us. John's been our featured speaker for over five decades. He's also Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. His current series is showing you how the book of Daniel predicted the rise and fall of world powers. Well, John, as we think about the ebb and flow of history, it's hard not to look the other direction to the future and wonder where things are headed. But how much value is there in thinking about what's coming down the road? Well, I think the value is summed up in what the Bible says. He that has this hope in him purifies himself. What the Scripture is saying is when you know that Jesus is coming and you know that he says, My reward is with me to give to every man according as his work shall be, you know the Lord is going to show up and you're going to be evaluated. Whether your life is wood, hay, and stubble or gold, silver, and precious stones, and on that basis you're going to be given an eternal reward, I think that accountability is very, very important. Also, when you know you're going to see face to face the one who gave his life for you, the one who loved you and died for you, and the one who sent his Holy Spirit to live in you, your love and affection for Christ has a motivating effect on your life. So yeah, I think the second coming is the believer's motivation to a holy life, because we have to have that kind of accountability. I used to think about what happened in school when I was in elementary school when the teacher left the room, and it was chaos until you heard the feet heading toward the door and everybody dove back into the desk.

It's kind of that. We need to have that accountability with one we love and the one who will come to reward us and to evaluate our love at his return. I think we need to know not only that he's coming, but I think we need to know everything possible about his coming, and the most full presentation of the elements of his coming is the book of Revelation. And a number of years ago, I decided I would teach the entire book of Revelation in one message, and it went for an hour and a half.

That was a great message. And out of that, it was called A Jet Tour Through Revelation. We went through the entire book based on—it begins, Blessed is he who reads and understands this book. So since it can be understood and we're blessed if we do, we went through that jet tour, high-altitude panoramic view of Revelation. We have it in a booklet. It's available free to anyone who asks. You will understand the flow and impact of the book of Revelation and details about the coming of our Lord Jesus.

That's right. And, friend, to make sure you're not missing out on life-changing truth found in the Bible's final book, request a free copy of John's booklet called A Jet Tour Through Revelation when you contact us today. Call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. If you have questions about the tribulation, the antichrist, or what Christ's second coming will mean for the church and for the world, this book can give you the biblical answers you're looking for.

The title again, A Jet Tour Through Revelation. We'll send it to you for free. Just call for your copy today, 800-55-GRACE, or go to our website gty.org. And when you visit gty.org, you'll find numerous ways to take in John MacArthur's verse-by-verse teaching. You can listen to radio broadcasts you've missed, watch Grace to You television, and search John's entire sermon archive by date, by book of the Bible, or by topic. That's 3,500 sermons, all free to download in audio or transcript format. And if you're not sure what to listen to first, a great option is Grace Stream. It's a continuous broadcast of John's teaching through the New Testament. All of that and more is ready for you at gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be here tomorrow when John continues his study on biblical prophecy and the future of the world. Join us for another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.